Law professor suggests loosening some federal regulations to keep rural residents from feeling oppressed

Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Secession isn't a new notion in the United States, but it seems to be getting more popular, University of Tennessee law professorGlenn Harlan Reynolds writes for the Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon.

Increasingly, some primarily rural sections of states have tried to create their own states. Some states have been inviting them, as was the case when the governor of West Virginia and evangelical icon Jerry Falwell Jr. recently urged conservative Virginia counties to join West Virginia.

"The reason it’s gathering steam is the same reason why most secession movements, including the American break with Great Britain in 1776, gain steam: the belief that the people who want to leave are being treated badly and callously by rulers over whom they have little or no influence," Reynolds writes. "It’s not just 'taxation without representation,' but also, 'regulation without representation.' And a general sense of being held in contempt."

Such a thing could be done, and has before: West Virginia was formed as a free state from Virginia, a slave state, during the Civil War. But there are easier ways to bridge the rural-urban divide and protect the rural minority, Reynolds writes. He advocates loosening federal regulations on hot-button issues like firearms and the environment and preventing states from strengthening such regulations so rural minorities don't feel oppressed. "That wouldn’t eliminate all the friction, but it would help. And it’s cheaper than a civil war," Reynolds writes.