Political science professor Thomas F. Schaller’s latest Baltimore Sun opinion column responds to the Western Maryland Initiative — an effort to organize Maryland’s western counties to secede and create their own state.
Organizer Scott Strzelczyk’s main complaint, Schaller notes, is that Maryland is so heavily Democratic that non-Democrats are not as well represented. Strzelczyk has suggested, “If we have more states, we can all go live in states that best represent us, and then we can get along.”
Schaller recognizes Maryland as a blue state and “leader nationally even among liberal Democratic states on issues like gay marriage and gun control.” He notes, “it’s understandable that tea party-affiliated Western Marylanders like Mr. Strzelczyk feel a bit displaced, or at least ignored,” but he argues that creating a new state is far from viable.
Read the full column at The Baltimore Sun.
