Secession Silliness Continues

Sad Sean Conway and his sad plaid jacket

As The Denver Post reports, Weld County plans to put the question of secession from Colorado on its county ballot, mostly because Sean Conway is sad:

A secession question is very likely to appear on the Weld County ballot in November, commissioner Sean Conway said Monday.

"It sends a very clear message to Denver that people are unhappy," Conway said.

Representatives from Cheyenne, Kit Carson, Logan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington and Weld counties participated in a conference call Monday afternoon, but most said they would not OK a ballot question until county attorneys delivered final wording. Participants agreed, however, that such a wording should be uniform.

Weld County has been spearheading the 51st state initiative, which supports secession from Colorado.

When Conway and friends first floated the idea of seceding from Colorado, it was recognized as the goofy PR stunt that it was. Yes, some people in rural Colorado were not happy with some of the legislation approved last spring, but that's how Democracy works.

The idea has since sputtered, predictably so, as "town hall" meetings were held throughout Eastern Colorado. While Conway seems hell-bent on keeping the nonsense alive, others are seceding from the secession debate:

Lincoln County administrator Roxy Devers said the commissioners in her county are not planning to put the measure on the 2013 ballot.

"They have not heard a lot of their constituents stating this would be a good idea," Devers said. [Pols emphasis]

From what we've been hearing, comments from the likes of Devers are increasingly common. Conway's silly stunt drew some attention to the issues at first, but it's becoming an embarrassment for many rural Coloradans.

We have a hard time seeing where Conway hopes to go with this effort, since it is virtually impossible for his merry band to actually form a 51st state. It's not like Conway can use this as a springboard to run for state office, either; as we've pointed out again and again, around 90% of the voting population in Colorado lives along the Front Range, between Fort Collins and Pueblo. Some rural Coloradans may not be pleased with the state legislature, but it would be completely absurd for an elected body to focus on the wishes of 10% of the state at the expense of everyone else.

It bears repeating that Weld County is the largest of the rural counties, and they have barely one-third the number of voters as Denver. There's no "anti-rural Colorado" conspiracy. People just don't live there anymore.

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