#CalExit organizers get OK to collect signatures for 2018 ballot measure
California…where strange things keep happening.
2018 is going to be a big election year for California.
Not only do we get to pick a new governor, but we may get a chance to vote to secede from the United States of America as well. #CalExit, a #Brexit inspired movement in which California would secede from the union, has cleared an important hurdle and a secession measure would be on our 2018 ballot.
I have previously reported that leader of Yes California (the organized, supposedly San Diego-based effort for this movement) is an American who lives in Russia and runs the independence campaign from there. Louis Marinelli has now gotten approval from California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to begin collecting signatures begin gathering signatures to place secession on the California ballot.
The Yes California Independence Campaign has been around for at least two years, but the election of President Trump only saw increased momentum for the so-called Calexit cause. Trump lost California by more than 4 million votes, fueling interest in a Calexit — a play on the United Kingdom’s “Brexit” campaign that saw that country’s voters decide to leave the European Union.
The California secretary of state’s office announced that the group could begin collecting signatures on Thursday.
The group needs 585,407 signatures from registered voters over the next 180 days to qualify for the ballot.
If Marinelli’s team can get the required signatures, then the measure would be on the 2019 ballot. If at least 50% of the state’s registered voters participate and 55% of those voting actually say “Yes”, the results would be California’s declaration of independence.
As a Californian who wants to remain in the union, I am grateful that only my state’s citizens get to vote. Based on the social media commentary, I suspect that it were left to citizens in the remainder of the country, the Golden State would be given the boot.
How likely is it that there will be enough signatures from Californians? I actually began my citizen activism gathering signatures for Governor Gray Davis’ recall, so I anticipate it may be difficult to hit the nearly 600,000 mark unless there are many boots-on-the-ground.
A campaign committee, Yes California Independence Committee, has raised no funds so far, according to records from the secretary of state. But Evans says that his group has more than 7,000 volunteers (significantly down from a 13,000 estimate in December) ready to gather signatures and that voters can expect to see signature gatherers on the streets in the next couple of days.
However, it aslo appears that secession may be gaining approval as the American media gins up angst about President Trump.
Recent polls show support for California nationhood falls well short of a majority, but that the idea is catching on with voters.
A Reuters/IPSOS poll released Tuesday found 32 percent of California residents surveyed support seceding from the union as the state’s staunchly liberal voters recoil from the Republican president.
So, while the task is daunting, a #CalExit vote is not impossible. Stranger things have happened in this state.
In a fascinating development, some California’s liberal pundits are now working to undermine the secession movement. Los Angeles Times contributor Conor Friedersdorf explains that ‘Calexit’ would be a disaster for progressive values:
For decades California has exerted more influence on American politics and culture than vice versa. Secession would not improve our values. But it would practically ensure that the rest of the U.S. would drift farther away from our laid-back tolerance and easygoing diversity. And they’d still be our neighbors, geographic reality unchanged by political independence.
And these people wonder why we get smacked in social media by non-Californians!
To be fair, Friedersdorf also mentions business ties, banking networks, and the water supply as real, non-ideological concerns that make it sensible to stay American.
So, it may be in 2018 that Tea Party activists join hands with our state’s progressives to ensure California remains part of this great country.
Again, stranger things have happened.
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Comments
Sometimes a child needs to be taught a tough lesson by letting them make a mistake and reap the consequences. I say let California go. Let them see how much they depend on the greater nation. Then make it quite a chore to get back into the good graces of the adults in the room.
Do svidania, Калифорния!
So, Ms. Eastman, what states are on your list of potential new places to live?
再見永遠，加利福尼亞!
I will worry about that only after the measure passes. I am already working hard to see that it does not.
Think of the tariffs!
Perfect! California would be responsible for it’s own border with Mexico and most likely open it up to anyone who wants to immigrate. Think of the possibilities.
Just remember that if you buy it, you own it.
After “The Big One”, California might literally be separated from the US
Then we’d need to control the border between CA and the US which would result in approx 8X the border length to manage.
The good news is that communist regimes build walls to keep their people in, so it’ll be their expense, not ours.
As we saw with the promised mass exodus of liberal celebrities (which never happened), CA will fail utterly to fulfill its dream to secede from the Union because they will realize at the last minute how catastrophic such an action would be. Sadly, the rest of the Union will be just as disappointed in that inevitable outcome as we were when all those celebrities decided to stay put.
Don’t you know this is a way for the celebrities to leave the US without having to sell their homes.
“As we saw with the promised mass exodus of liberal celebrities (which never happened)…”
In their defense, I believe that a number of them actually tried…but ran up against Canada’s strict immigration laws. Oh, the irony!
Is it a federal crime for foreigners to interfere in State electons/referendums.
Such laws are unconstitutional anyway. Foreigners have freedom of speech, the same as we do.
Here in NC there are local social service agencies that address homelessness by issuing one-way bus tickets to some other town, bus tickets being far cheaper than guv bennies. So, if CA secedes from the union, I expect the remaining 56 states will be sending a whole lot of benefit vaccuums by bus, one-way. Heh.
HA! LOL
What Henry said!
I live in Columbia, SC……the one-way destination for all your homeless folks. I wish NC would end that practice, or at least send them to Virginia.
They don’t send the homeless out of state, but to another NC town. We do send liberal meth addicts directly to Columbia, SC, though, and sometimes the odd leper.
When Bill Buckley ran for mayor of NYC in ’65 he proposed shipping welfare recipients to other places, but continuing to pay their benefits for as long as they remained in need of them. That way they wouldn’t be a financial burden on their new homes, and if they’re in new places where there’s not such a concentration of poverty they might actually find jobs and no longer need the benefits. In the meantime NY would be relieved of the social problem.
Yeah, go ahead California, we’re about due for another Civil War. What a shame it will be to drop nukes on our own country, but the land can be cleaned in 1-2 generations.
By 2018, most of California will be owned by the Chinese.
One of the best things that could happen to Trump would be for left coast dems to spend a huge amount of time and energy arguing this issue for the next several years – Trump doesn’t have to say or do anything about it all, except watch the show and ask for more butter on his popcorn.
The Democrat Party will have a YUGE problem with it, however – it won’t take long for them to realize that if this went forward, Democrats would never win a national election again. On the other hand, if they strongly oppose it, they will open up a fight with a fanatical cohort of their most ardent supporters.
More popcorn! More butter!!! Sometimes all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the show.
Thanks Tom Servo.
That shows us the outcome for this Cal-exit.
Dems will never free their slaves on the California Plantations.
Don’t forget the cheese on that hot buttered and salted popcorn. Don’t do things half way.
CA: I’m running away from hime!
US: OK
CA: I mean it. don’t try to stop me, I really mean it….
US: …..
CA: OK here I go…..( aren’t you going to try to stop me?)
Of course, Congress still have to give approval.
I suppose I have to add: “If at least 50% of the state’s registered voters participate and 55% of those voting actually say “Yes”, the results would be California’s declaration of independence.”
And the answer to that is, so what? We settled that question in 1865. If California wants to give the rest of the country a pretext to install a military-based reconstruction state govm’t, then I guess that’s what they’ll get. There’s plenty of precedent for it, just like there is precedent for kicking states out of national elections for a generation. It’s all been done before.
People who don’t read history don’t remember that at the outset of the 1st Civil War in 1861, over half of the active West Point graduates sided with the South, and the South had put together a significantly larger army than the North (at the time, one of the reasons Lincoln launched a draft for the first time) At least the South knew that you only had a chance if you have a large and potent army under your command, and they still lost.
And yet the “oh noes, guns are scary, I can’t touch a gun, I need my safe space!!!” crowd of misfits and wannabes is gonna launch a revolution???? Puh-lease.
Why do people even acknowledge such insanity.
First of all, the issue of whether states may unilaterally secede from the Union was pretty much settled in 1865. It ain’t gonna happen, no matter what the residents of that state want.
Second, there isn’t a state in the Union which can survive as an independent nation. All the businesses, except the pot industry, would be gone in days after a vote to secede passed.
This is just more insanity from the land of the fruits, the flakes and the nuts.
It’s all laid out in the US Constitution:
Article 4, Section 3
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
This is not applicable as no NEW state is being admitted nor is the territory of any other state involved. This would be an existing state withdrawing as part of the existing Union. This is not covered anywhere in the Constitution. There is nothing in the Constitution precluding any state, or group of states from withdrawing from the Union.
However, the Civil War established the tenet that no member states could unilaterally withdraw from the Union.
As this potential for secession is not addressed in the U.S. Constitution it is up to Congress. The pressure to give CA the boot would be YUGE.
Not in the Constitution. But remember, the Constitution didn’t establish The United States. The Articles of Confederation established the union, with the following words:
‘‘ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION AND PERPETUAL UNION BETWEEN
THE STATES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, MASSACHUSETTS BAY,
RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS, CONNECTICUT,
NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, PENNSYLVANIA, DELAWARE,
MARYLAND, VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA, SOUTH
CAROLINA AND GEORGIA
The Constitution opens with the following words: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a
more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote
the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America. The preamble acknowledges the United States already exists. It doesn’t repudiate the Articles of Confederation, which established a “perpetual union“. There is no mechanism for a state to leave the Union, for you can’t leave a perpetual union, else it’s not perpetual. Joining the United States is a one way trip. Note that the existing California Constitution recognizes this: SEC. 3. The State of California is an inseparable part of the American Union, and the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land. Even if the people of California succeed in amending the state constitution to allow for separation, there’s still that pesky old United States Constitution, which doesn’t have a mechanism for dissolving a perpetual union.
Hope they enjoy being occupied by federal troops and having an appointed military governor while law and order are reestablished. And during the occupation, the state can be broken up. Think West Virginia for precedence.
Abraham Lincoln makes precisely this argument in his first Inaugural Address, sharpening it a bit by referring to the statement in the Preamble to the Constitution about forming “a more perfect Union.”
Lincoln also has a good short treatment of the contractarian argument for secession in this address.
what would make much more sense would be to split California into 3 states. North-CA, Central-CA and South-CA.
The demographics of CA is that Central-CA would be Republican and the other 2 DemoCrap.
Central-CA is most of the fruits, veggies are grown and have much more sensible people.
I am a CA resident for over 30 years and most people I associate with are middle of the road to Conservative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_delegations_from_California#Current_Representatives
Splitting California into three states would yield six Senators instead of the current two. Given the performance over the past twenty years of Democrats Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer and now Kamala Harris, I would not encourage that partitioning.
what would make much more sense would be to split California into 3 states. North-CA, Central-CA and South-CA.
The demographics of CA is that Central-CA would be Republican and the other 2 DemoCrap.
Central-CA is most of the fruits, veggies are grown and have much more sensible people.
I am a CA resident for over 30 years and most people I associate with are middle of the road to Conservative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_delegations_from_California#Current_Representatives
(this may be a dup post – my browser is giving me probs)
Write us a check for 15 percent of the national debt and you can go.
No checks. Gotta be gold.
I think if the initiative actually makes the ballot, then red parts should file a writ with the Federal Courts requesting that counties that vote to stay get to stay.
Perhaps Republicans should make the following offer: “We’ll take this up for debate PROVIDED you approve the formation of a new state out of California’s eastern counties first.”
I think General Mad Dog Mattis, seated in an Abrams tank at the head of the 1st Expeditionary Force of the reconstituted Army of the Potomac should be the one to make that offer.
I think it’s a threat, nothing more. I think they hope to gain more influence by engaging in this stunt. They would never survive as a separate country. It’s just a big “F you” with the middle finger salute. California would lose so many residents who actually work and make money, that the state would go bankrupt. Along with all it’s illegal immigrants. Recipe for disaster.
We settled that question in 1865.
Hardly relevant. The situation in 1861 was a shooting war; bombardment of a Federal fort, in an apparent attempt to confiscate the duties collected on trade. This was a not-insignificant sum, as Charleston Harbor was one of American’s most prominent mercantile ports at the time. Lincoln took no significant action to suppress the secession—or rebellion—before that.
The hostilities mounted when the new Confederacy, in an act of sheer and entirely pointless bravado, moved its capital to Richmond, less than a hundred miles from Washington. Things rapidly went to hell from then on, as both sides had to keep significant military forces near their capitals for protection against the military forces at their enemy’s capitals, the same armies providing both defense and the need and justification for that defense. The Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia fought over the same ground for four years, making no meaningful progress at all, because they were tied inflexibly to their locations.
A hostile South also presented the North with a severe strangulation of trade, as it would control the lower reaches of the Mississippi-Missouri river complex, vital to the Northern industrial and agrarian economy. The North simply could not allow a hostile power to strangle it. A peaceable secession would not have caused such a crisis. Ten years later, and the rapidly growing railroads would have lessened the importance of river transport, alleviating the crisis. But in 1861, blockade was economic death, and the Feds responded in the only way they could.
So far as is evident here, even wacky ol’ California is proposing no such foolishness as any of this.
The “war” is a social-political one and insurgency can produce more change (damage) than a shooting one. California is an active portal now for funneling illegal aliens into the mainstream which obviously has helped create the one party rule in the once golden state. “Language, borders, culture” are the sinews that hold a country together. If the states were to be laboratories to test ideas and ideals, then California has proven how to go about turning the USA particle board with a fancy but very thin veneer of socialist glory. As things go, I still think Jerry Brown will be the last non-Hispanic governor of California.
You may be right, but I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing.
A Chicano governor who favored growth and jobs and small business would be better than the current bunch who favor the social justice nostrums of the gentry leftists.
What do you mean, “A Chicano governor who favored growth and jobs and small business?” Don’t forget, this hypothetical person would still be a Democrat.
Once the vote is held, even if the it fails to pass, the Congress can cite the Virginia / West Virginia precedent and divide the state into two states, one made up of the counties that voted to secede and a second state made up of those that didn’t.
There are people in our proposed State of Jefferson that would be fine with that. http://www.soj51.net/
State of Jefferson, eh?
Movin’ on up! (beat, beat)
To the West side! (beat, beat, beat, beat)
Finally got a piece of the pie!
When the proposed State of Jefferson organizes, it had better think long and hard about including Humboldt and Mendocino counties, as they went 58.3% and 60.4%, respectively, for Hillary.
And, I’d hate to tie the rest of the Central Valley to the coastal elites.
One of the upsides of the State of Jefferson is that Jefferson could cut San Francisco off from Hetch Hetchy water. That would give them a taste, now, wouldn’t it?
Dear California,
Drought is coming. Water from the Colorado may not be.
So, the Soviets would have preferred Clinton. Russians, not so much.
If California leaves, don’t the rest of us get to first collect each resident’s share of the National Debt? Seems fair to me that we all settle up before the split becomes effective.
If my rudimentary math skills are competent enough my rough calculations indicate a 19 and 1/2 trillion dollar debt divided by the approximately 240 million people in the country by the time of Calexit equals about %87,000 per citizen.
For a fashionable California family of 3 that would be about a quarter of million dollar bill.
Wonder how many people will suddenly claim not to be California residents when the bill comes due?
Would we expats be able to collect our share, too?
Does California allow same day voter registration?
If so, I foresee millions of voters flying into California on election day, registering, voting for California to succeed, and catching the next plane out of town.
The state could set up voting precincts at the major airports so we wouldn’t have to leave the airport.
Maybe California state government accountants figured out they’d get more US federal dollars in foreign aid if they became a separate country.
The only thing that would bother me is that the price of pistachios would probably go up. But the way Cali is going anyway, Calexit or no Calexit, there won’t be any water for the pistachio orchards anyway, so maybe the point is moot.
I love pistachio nuts, but they’re already up to about a buck apiece retail. Per nut.
No need to secede. If we keep on electing leftists like Harris, Newsom, et al the other states will kick us out of the union.
If I am allowed to keep US citizenship and counties that wish to remain part of the US are allowed to do so, I will vote for secession then move to a county in the US. Let California figure out where to get water and how to shore up its bloated public employee pension funds.
Make California Mexico Again
If Cali actually votes to do this, Congress should downgrade them from State to Territory status.
Sale Cali to Mexico. Cheap.
Yep. The Democratic Party is desperate to avoid talking about what the State really needs: an audit of its voting registration procedures. The more ineffectual, the better. This gambit suits their interests.
Soros, as Founding Father. Imagine?
Worse, can you imagine California’s military? How will their troops march in high heels?