North Colorado secession, city country divide

One of the problems with any sort of government is that without serious constitutional restrictions, the major population centers can use their majority to impose their will on, and loot the lesser populated areas. This appears to be the root cause of the secessionist movement among northeastern Colorado counties.

Much of rural and provincial Australia can identify with the problems listed by County Commissioners: 

Weld County commissioners on Thursday announced that they want to join other northeastern Colorado counties in forming a new state — North Colorado.  Commissioners said a “collective mass” of issues have cumulated during the past several years that isolate rural Colorado from the rest of the state and put those counties at a disadvantage. 

They said they met with county commissioners at a Colorado Counties, Inc. conference earlier this week to discuss the feasibility of forming a new state, a question that would first be put to voters on the November ballot.  Commissioners said Morgan, Logan, Sedgwick, Phillips, Washington, Yuma and Kit Carson counties all expressed interest in the idea. 

The signing of S.B. 252, which increases renewable energy standards in rural areas in a way that rural energy companies say is too costly, and an attack on the oil and gas industry from the Legislature this year were the “straws that broke the camel’s back,” commissioners said. 

Weld County’s main economic drivers — agriculture and energy — are under attack, even though they fill Colorado coffers, said Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway.He said Weld County hardly sees a return from its financial contributions to the state. Conway said he has watched as transportation corridors in the Denver area continue to be improved while Interstate 76, a vital corridor for Colorado’s agricultural counties, remains in deplorable condition. … 

Overall tax revenue in Weld County has increased year after year, but Freeman said the schools here continue to get the same inadequate allocations from the state because of an outdated and unequal Public School Finance Act. … 

… They said they could also join with other eastern Colorado counties or even some western Nebraska counties that have expressed discontent with their own state Legislature.

Gun control legislation recently passed is also an issue in this case.

There have been numerous secessionist movements over the years here in Australia, and frequently for similar reasons to this.  Landholders and communities outside the major population centers have chafed for decades at being the target of feel good legislation to assuage the consciences of city dwellers who have no concept of any reality outside the metropolitan area.