Official Calls For 12 Counties To Secede From California

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http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/07/01/official-calls-for-riverside-12-other-counties-to-secede-from-california

RIVERSIDE (CBS) — Is the state of California about to go “South”?

Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone apparently thinks so, after proposing that the county lead a campaign for as many as 13 Southern California counties to secede from the state.

Stone said in a statement late Thursday that Riverside, Imperial, San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino, Kings, Kern, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo, Madera, Mariposa and Mono counties should form the new state of South California.

The creation of the new state would allow officials to focus on securing borders, balancing budgets, improving schools and creating a vibrant economy, he said.

“Our taxes are too high, our schools don’t educate our children well enough, unions and other special interests have more clout in the Legislature than the general public,” Stone said in his statement.

He unveiled his proposal on the day Gov. Jerry Brown signed budget legislation that will divert about $14 million in 2011-12 vehicle license fee revenue from four new Riverside County cities.

Officials fear the cut will cripple the new cities of Eastvale, Jurupa Valley, Menifee and Wildomar.

Stone said he would present his proposal to the Board of Supervisors July 12.

The new state would have no term limits, only a part-time legislature and limits on property taxes.

“A secessionist movement? What is this, 1860?” Brown spokesman Gil Duran told The Press-Enterprise.

Riverside County Supervisor Bob Buster called Stone’s proposal a “crazy distraction.”

“We should begin to get our own budget balanced, which we haven’t done yet, and put in place some of the reforms we need in this county before we try and go and restructure the government in the great state of California,” he told the Press-Enterprise.

“The temperature has gone up in Riverside County and it seems Supervisor Stone has gotten too much sun recently,” he added.

GOD I HOPE THIS HAPPENS!! !

I absolutely love it! We could get free of the Los Angeles-San Fancisco-Sacramento axis that controls the state, our senators that behave like royalty, and make California contested again in presidential elections, among other advantages. I'd feel sorry for people in L.A. and farther north who fought progressivism here but are stuck going down with that ship though. It's not simple or perfect, but it would be an improvement.

Seems kind of a gerrymander. Wouldn't it make more sense to draw the line between Monterey, Kings, Tulare, and Inyo in the north and San Luis Obispo, Kern, and San Bernardino in the south?

Edit: or, trade Kern for Monterey to avoid water rights disputes.

California is certainly big enough to be split into two states each with two senators, I'd agree.

It won't. Governor Moonbeam will send in the troops.

ruveyn

California is way to big anyways. It could easily be 3 states.

As long as we kept LA, I would be just fine with this as a progressive NorCaliana.

So Jeff Stone wants to create a right-wing utopia for Southern Californians? Somehow I doubt this will go over; the last time a state seceded from another state was when West Virginia seceded from Virginia during the Civil War. Congress needs to approve the entry of new states as well.

It'd be a good thing if it happened.

Much of the "liberal" stance of California is focused on the two largest population areas in the state...Los Angles and San Francisco. Take them away, and the state is much more politically balanced. Right now, winning those two cities (presidential election) gives a very good chance of getting the points for the entire state.

I'm sure if you cut out those areas and let them be their own state, you'd free up the rest of the state to do things as they would rather have them instead of two geographic hot spots having much sway over state politics.

Well, no; San Francisco has a smaller population than both San Jose and Oakland. If you're talking about the San Francisco Bay area as a whole, yes, it is the second largest. I'd assume some parts of the Bay area may have more Republican voters like Santa Clara County (i.e., Silicon Valley) and other areas where relatively affluent, middle-class suburbanites live.

All of Southern California is pretty much one big urban conglomeration, but I guess the military base in Orange County sort of divides the Los Angeles/Long Beach part from suburbanized Orange County and San Diego.

I'd compare it with Missouri and the St. Louis area. Missouri as a whole has been trending increasingly Republican over the last couple of decades, but the St. Louis area is a microcosm of the nation's divisions. The City of St. Louis leans heavily Democratic, but it only has a population of about 330,000. St. Louis County, with a population of about 1 million, leans Democratic, but the breakdown is more nuanced. Inner-ring suburbs tend to vote Democratic while the the outer-ring and more affluent suburbs mostly trend Republican. St. Charles County and Jefferson County are suburban to exurban to rural, and both counties lean heavily Republican. St. Charles County experienced explosive growth before the 2007-2009 recession (mostly people moving from more inner parts of the St. Louis area), and it's mostly lily-white middle-class suburbanites wanting to raise a family in nice suburban McMansions with good schools and not a lot to do except fast food/chain restaurants, big-box stores, strip malls, and other suburban generica. Jefferson County has a suburban character, but it also has a definite "hoosier" (redneck) flavor and has maintained a somewhat "country" feel despite heavy suburbanization since the 1990s in municipalities like Arnold: pick-up trucks, gun shops, a slightly twangy accent, trailer parks, and a lot of the semi-rustic working-class types who like to shop at Wal-Mart, eat fast food, watch NASCAR, and go hunting.

I am already planning to move out of Southern California anyway as I find it too conservative for my safety as a transgender person. California is becoming more Republican as a whole because people are sick of being taxed to death while cutting so many services.

Riverside county also has the worst employment prospects in the entire country. It is possible Republicans could help employment prospects or make life impossible for the various people in poverty here.

I am just terrified what this would mean for the University of California & California State University who help tens of thousands of lower class families lift out of poverty. UC Riverside is in Riverside county and no doubt a Republican state would cut funding so that only the higher classes would afford education; thus cutting opportunity from the lower classes and trapping them in poverty.

I live in sonoma county. i guess its an alright place to live, but well just have to wait and see if i stay there. the shopping is few and far between there (i guess because they dont like outsiders?) so thats my only complaint about santa rosa so far. paying $20 for a CD sucks! and theres only one place in the coddingtown mall that sells them.

the mall they have downtown is a gigantic waste of money

And this happened on the day South Sudan seceded from the north.

Texas has a law where it can split into 5 states. We have never split into multiple states, but we have been an independent nation, and seceded from the Union during the Civil War (with only Jack County opposing secession).

That would include extremely liberal areas that would control the new state or fight to stay part of the existing one as well as small central coast towns that aren't politically active. It doesn't matter what counties get traded for water rights disputes because they are already going on.


That wouldn't go over well with most people since we would not be seceding from the union. Few other than extreme liberals that want California in one piece for their own agenda would support it, national opinion would be mostly against military intervention (and the media likely mostly for it) national guard units that have been deployed overseas would most likely hate it, and it would meet resistance down here. Realistically, moonbeam would try to tie it up in endless litigation.


That's part of the plan. Keeping LA would be poisonous to building a functional new state. It's best to leave them to crash and burn with the rest of the state's dysfunctional, degenerate, and unchecked "progressive" agenda, and hopefully we can one day use it as a model and example to keep others from trying to follow California's lead.


Republicans would be in a better place to bring in jobs because they would have power to cut bureaucratic red tape that has traditionally chased companies away from here. State services would be a problem for a while since we probably wouldn't get away without a share of the existing deficit, but we would be better capable of paying it off with oil and mining royalties, and if we don't have as strict of air pollution laws we can take most shipping business from LA harbor to Long Beach and San Diego harbors. Lots of businesses would likely move along the new state's western border to do business with the more populated LA and central coastal areas, but in a more business friendly environment. The college system would still have federal grants and vocational rehabilitation subsidized by the federal department of labor available, and once the budget is resolved, college tuition assistance from the state (either in the form of grants or fee reduction) will sooner or later get demanded by the voters.

I'd be fine if we conservatives can get 3 of the following 4: san luis obispo, ventura, monterey, and santa barbara(I mostly want Santa Barbara and Ventura, and though it has beautiful weather and beaches, I can give Monterey). Also ask most of the interior to succeed with us as well including most of the conservative county's in the north around sacramento.

We can keep LA county as well so long as we redrew the counties to balance and bleed in a little conservatism into the LA area a bit. With tight reins over LA from our new California state capital, it'll be fine - I think this capital should be located in San Luis Obispo as to bring people, busineses, and development into the North as Brazilia did for Brazil's interior, and it would actually then make High-speed Rail a viable pursuit, and it would strike as a mediator between the south and the interior. There's a lot of things we can do in making it a livable, accessable, worldclass moderate conservative state.

there's been a movement in the pacific NW to succeed from the US as its own country of Cascadia, ranging from Northern California up to Vancouver BC, ranging out as far east as western montana/idaho, so the rest of northern california can be absorbed by cascadia, leaving the name california behind for southern california to use exclusively.

LA is pretty hopeless at this point. It's gone out of it's way to get this way for a long time now. I agree there are some nice beaches north of LA county, but getting support from those areas to secede would be a problem, and giving LA county a second class status to quarantine their idiocy would probably be unconstitutional so they might as well get left to be Sacramento's problem.

Their's also the port of longbeach and oakland(two of the biggest in the country) that we would give up as well, in addition to the trade hubs of LAX, and the three airports in the bay. I personally think we would need a liberal element and that we move in on mass to balance the county of LA. Beyond politics, they have a fairly entrepreneurial black community, a decent section of the UC and CSU university systems which we could reform, access to the seas for trade, illegal hispanics who would make excellent workers, a floundering aerospace and tech industry which we could reverse and grow and allow us to show the North, and the rest of the country how to be a jobs machine, how to bring companies to America, and how to be a leading export state.

But you are right, the county would be a lost cause, LA's city hall too toxic and anti-business, and they would rather be a liberal city-state surrounded by a conservative state then be a liberal county in a conservative state. Though there is hope, and that hope is a stretch because you can't force it on a city that doesn't want it for itself. But as articulated by Joel Kotkin, if the city can get past its toxic city council, utilize its assets, and shift back to the center, it can be a relevant and hot city again where people actually want to move to - here's one aspect that LA can utilize to its advantage: The Green Economy(which is weak but will pick up towards the middle of the decade):


http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/00366 ... de-decline

this also accurately describes the symptoms of LA(A reprint from New Geography)
http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/23/villar ... geles.html

I still want San Luis Obispo, Ventura, and Santa Barbara - it seems santa barbara can join us down the line but San Luis and Ventura seem pretty conservative, both in how they vote for the state house and senate.