Residents of the rural counties of California are so fed up with the liberal urban governance of their state that they’ve proposed the creation of a “New California” – and they’ve even issued their own Declaration of Independence.
According to New California founder Robert Paul Preston, California has “been ungovernable for a long time. High taxes, education, you name it, and we’re rated around 48th or 50th from a business climate and standpoint in California. There’s something wrong when you have a rural county such as this one, and you go down to Orange County which is mostly urban, and it has the same set of problems, and it happens because of how the state is being governed and taxed.”
To be clear, New California does not want to leave the United States – just California. It would incorporate most of the state’s rural counties, leaving the urban coastal counties to the current state.
Viva New California pic.twitter.com/e6Td2Vly9A
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) January 17, 2018
Furthermore, while there have been several other separation movements in California, the backers of New California want to do it by the book, citing Article 4, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution which reads: “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 means that New California would need to be approved by both state and federal lawmakers, similar to the way in which West Virginia was formed.
Of course, proponents of the movement have a long road ahead of them. While the group already has committees and a council of representatives, it will take 10 to 18 months before they are ready to fully engage with the state legislature. “Yes. We have to demonstrate that we can govern ourselves before we are allowed to govern,” said founder Tom Reed.
It’s really no surprise that residents of California’s rural counties want to break away from the urban bureaucracy of the state. It’s becoming an increasing problem across the United States that the desires of densely populated urban areas are outweighing the needs and concerns of the larger rural counties. This has been an increasing problem for years in the swing state of Virginia, where the high concentration of liberals in the Northern region of the state often tip elections in their favor, rendering the rest of the state – which is largely conservative – effectively voiceless.
Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that New California will happen. But if it does, it will likely improve the lives of everyone.
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