West Kansas was a proposed state of the United States, advocated by a short-lived

secessionist movement Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics le ...

in the 1990s. This movement was in reaction to a 1992 school finance law that disadvantaged rural schools. The proposed state would have consisted of nine counties from south-western

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

Background

In May 1992,

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Joan Finney Joan Marie Finney (née McInroy; February 12, 1925 – July 28, 2001) was an American politician who served as the 42nd governor of Kansas from 1991 to 1995. Prior to her tenure as governor, Finney served four terms as the Kansas state treasurer ...

signed into law a new school finance formula that adversely affected several south-western Kansas counties. These laws raised taxes and shifted state education funding away from rural school districts and into more urban areas. In reaction to this, a group headed by

Don O. Concannon Donald Owen Concannon (October 28, 1927 – March 9, 2013) was an American attorney and unsuccessful political candidate for the United States Republican Party in Kansas. Early life Concannon was born on a farm 20 miles outside Garden City, K ...

advocated the secession of a number of counties from the state. The group organized a series of

straw poll A straw poll, straw vote, or straw ballot is an ad hoc or unofficial vote. It is used to show the popular opinion on a certain matter, and can be used to help politicians know the majority opinion and help them decide what to say in order to gain ...

s that demonstrated widespread support for secession in nine counties from south-western Kansas:

Grant Grant or Grants may refer to: Places *Grant County (disambiguation) Australia * Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia United Kingdom *Castle Grant United States * Grant, Alabama *Grant, Inyo County, C ...

Haskell Haskell () is a general-purpose, statically-typed, purely functional programming language with type inference and lazy evaluation. Designed for teaching, research and industrial applications, Haskell has pioneered a number of programming lan ...

, Hodgeman, Kearny,

Kiowa Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and eve ...

, Meade,

Morton Morton may refer to: People * Morton (surname) * Morton (given name) Fictional * Morton Koopa, Jr., a character and boss in ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' * A character in the ''Charlie and Lola'' franchise * A character in the 2008 film '' Horton H ...

, Stanton, and Stevens. On September 11, 1992, a constitutional convention was convened in

Ulysses, Kansas Ulysses (pronounced ) is a city in and the county seat of Grant County, Kansas, United States. It is named after Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 5,788. History ...

, at which it was decided to call the new state "West Kansas". A state bird (the

pheasant Pheasants ( ) are birds of several genera within the family (biology), family Phasianidae in the order (biology), order Galliformes. Although they can be found all over the world in introduced (and captive) populations, the pheasant genera na ...

), and a state flower (the

yucca ''Yucca'' is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40–50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitish flo ...

) were also chosen. The West Kansas secession movement ended rather quickly, and a formal petition for secession was never presented to the

Kansas Legislature The Kansas Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Kansas. It is a bicameral assembly, composed of the lower Kansas House of Representatives, with 125 state representatives, and the upper Kansas Senate, with 40 state senators. ...

. Seventeen affected school districts filed lawsuits, but at the end of 1994, the

Kansas Supreme Court The Kansas Supreme Court is the highest judicial authority in the state of Kansas. Composed of seven justices, led by Chief Justice Marla Luckert, the court supervises the legal profession, administers the judicial branch, and serves as the sta ...

upheld the constitutionality of the 1992 act.

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two Territories became the state of Oklahom ...

professor Peter J. McCormick noted in 1995 that "the real differences between the southwest and the rest of Kansas remain, however, as do issues of school control and unfair taxation."

References

{{coord missing, Kansas Politics of Kansas Proposed states and territories of the United States Separatism in the United States 1992 in American politics 1992 in Kansas Regions of Kansas

Background

See also

References