Oregon Republicans are a self-defeating bunch. They have purposely kept the legislature from having a mandatory quorum to stall the passage of legislation. What has that achieved? All but three of them are now barred from running in their next election. Oregon voters passed a law last year meant to stop this kind of nonsense and yet here we are again. Looks like a modification to the law is needed to recalculate quorum without the vacant seat.
So it's a bad deal when the 10% or so are democrats but a good deal when it happens to the 10% or so of republican voters. Got it. What I would like is for every state to be purple. That would give rise to more in the middle candidates on both sides AND make them actually do some campaigning with real ideas that someone would need to get elected.
Status quo for the last 165 years delineates it as Oregon territory so I don’t see it as an analogous situation. Both sides have their preferences but there’s a much larger hurdle for the side trying to make the change.
While it will never happen, to the extent that Oregon is even remotely a swing state the breakaway would virtually guarantee that Oregon's two senators will be Democrats.