West Kansas
West Kansas was a proposed state of the United States, advocated by a short-lived secessionist movement in the 1990s.
Background
In 1992, Kansas introduced laws raising real estate taxes, and shifting state education funding away from rural school districts and into more urban areas. In reaction to this, a group in southwestern Kansas headed by Don O. Concannon advocated the secession of a number of counties from the state. These counties were Haskell, Hodgeman, Kiowa, Meade, Morton, Stanton, and Stevens.[1]
Proposals
The group called the new state name "West Kansas", a state bird (pheasant), and a state flower (yucca). Though organizers arranged for a series of straw polls that demonstrated widespread support for secession in nine counties,[2] the movement died out by the mid-1990s.[3]
Result and evaluation
References
- ^ McCormick, Peter J. (1995). "The 1992 Secessionist Movement in Southwest Kansas". Great Plains Quarterly. 15 (4): 247–258. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
- ^ Overby, Peter (December 1992). "We're outta here!". Common Cause Magazine. 18 (4): 23.
- ^ Kauffman, Bill (March 1995). "Smaller Is Beautifuller". The American Enterprise. p. 37. Archived from the original on February 14, 2007.
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