'South California' for 51st state?

July 12, 2011 3:14 PM

Jeff Stone, a politician from Riverside County, wants 13 conservative Southern California counties to secede and become the country's 51st state.
posted by reenum (154 comments total)

Speaking as liberal in a conservative part of NorCal, I'm okay with this.
posted by entropicamericana at 3:21 PM on July 12, 2011 [9 favorites]

I can't think of anything that would be better for California's chronic budget problems than for the obstructionist southern conservatives to secede and try to run their own government without public schools, highways, or other unwarranted intrusions into the private sphere.
posted by whir at 3:23 PM on July 12, 2011 [86 favorites]

Take Los Angeles county with you and I'll support it.
posted by Talez at 3:23 PM on July 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

Good thing those conservatives are fighting the good fight for smaller government.
posted by feloniousmonk at 3:24 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

"South California"?? They can do better than THAT.

How about "Crazyfornia"?
posted by not_on_display at 3:24 PM on July 12, 2011 [15 favorites]

I'm sure his effort will be as effective as the Alaska secessionists, the Texas secessionists and the Free State Project.
posted by box at 3:24 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

*facepalm*

Also, as a San Diego native, this quote sums it up for me: “If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there’s a place called Arizona.”
posted by Tknophobia at 3:25 PM on July 12, 2011 [66 favorites]

From the second link:

If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there’s a place called Arizona.

HAH!
posted by msbutah at 3:25 PM on July 12, 2011

I think they should be given permission to do this under the stipulation that the state be called Nuevo California.
posted by feloniousmonk at 3:25 PM on July 12, 2011 [26 favorites]

Speaking as liberal in a conservative part of NorCal, I'm okay with this.

You're OK with an additional two Republican senators? I'm not.

So far this is just a nutty idea dreamed up by a county official, and I'm pretty sure that's all it will ever be. It's hardly worth discussing.
posted by grouse at 3:26 PM on July 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

Damn my fancy blockquote formatting. You win this round Tknophobia
posted by msbutah at 3:26 PM on July 12, 2011

Speaking as a resident of California, how many jobs is this creating?
posted by mullingitover at 3:27 PM on July 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

Sounds more like East California. Except for San Diego and Orange they're all inland.
posted by doublehappy at 3:28 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'll consider it if Northern California doesn't have to give them another drop of water.
posted by small_ruminant at 3:28 PM on July 12, 2011 [48 favorites]

Speaking as a resident of California, how many jobs is this creating?

If the two states ever go to war think of all the soldiers they'll both need!
posted by lesbiassparrow at 3:29 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Damn my fancy blockquote formatting. You win this round Tknophobia

WOOHOO!

...uh, what do I win?
posted by Tknophobia at 3:29 PM on July 12, 2011

Speaking as a resident of California, how many jobs is this creating?

This will just create more GOVERNMENT JOBS!!!
posted by Mister Fabulous at 3:32 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

You're OK with an additional two Republican senators? I'm not.

I was so enthused about getting the obstructionist nutjobs out of Sacramento, it hadn't occurred to me that we would end up with more in DC.

Still, it's interesting that it's southern conservatives talking about seceding, historically it has been the northern ones.
posted by entropicamericana at 3:32 PM on July 12, 2011

Kinda like this natural experiment. You could track a number of social and economic variables and see if they improve relative to the trends in other California counties. I suspect they would go downhill relative to the remaining counties, but, hey, I'm always willing to be proven wrong if the data say I am.
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:32 PM on July 12, 2011

So far this is just a nutty idea dreamed up by a county official, and I'm pretty sure that's all it will ever be. It's hardly worth discussing.

Yeah, well, tell that to Time and the Washington Post. Sheesh.

Speaking as a resident of California, how many jobs is this creating?

Speaking as an unemployed San Diegan as of this coming Friday, I do confess that actual job creation for me would make me less likely to view Mr. Stone as a grandstanding teabagger schlemiel.
posted by Tknophobia at 3:33 PM on July 12, 2011

Dear you crazy folks:

Don't let the door hit you in the ass.

Signed,

San Francisco
posted by trip and a half at 3:34 PM on July 12, 2011 [14 favorites]

Why don't they just secede and join Arizona or Nevada? Then there are no extra senators created.
posted by msbutah at 3:34 PM on July 12, 2011

Tknophobia: You win a handful of jellybeans. *throws them at you* Enjoy!
posted by msbutah at 3:35 PM on July 12, 2011

The funny thing is that the top 10 counties in income are the 5 bay area counties, Ventura and the richer parts of the Greater Bay Area. So you've just decimated your state income tax revenue.

Now let's see you've got I-8, I-10, I-15 and I-40 to maintain and you don't have the Bay Area subsiding you. Now what? After health, law and order and education Caltrans is the state's biggest budget item and you've just gone and inherited the biggest, most annoying part of it to maintain.

Short of making I-15 and I-10 toll roads I'm not quite sure how you even begin to balance the budget considering you've got no revenue, no industry, no large population base besides the 300,000 or so in Riverside and most of those are just commuting to LA and spending their money there.

Agriculture? Yeah it's big in absolutes but it's 2% of California's GDP. You think you can make a living off taxing that?

At least when my old state tried to secede we did it knowing we're the massive economic engine and we're actually getting screwed not doing it because "the governor is a demmycrat"!
posted by Talez at 3:35 PM on July 12, 2011 [10 favorites]

We keep the water, farms, timber, and the beating heart of the tech industry. You can keep Disneyland.

Going to SoCal can be like when you go to visit your dead beat dad on a mandatory custody weekend and hey, at least he has a pool.
posted by JimmyJames at 3:36 PM on July 12, 2011 [29 favorites]

Can they take Florida and Texas with them?
posted by wowbobwow at 3:36 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

So far this is just a nutty idea dreamed up by a county official, and I'm pretty sure that's all it will ever be.

I don't think this is even really about actually getting a secession process rolling, though I'm sure if they could somehow pull off creating Calizona and get two Senate Seats, there are people who'd consider that a win.

Instead, what they're doing is trying to create social proof that California is poorly governed. "Look!" those affected can say, "It's so bad that some Californians just totally want the place they live out from under the thumb of the Socialists in Sacramento! What is it going to take for us to admit that its Left Coast Blue State policies have simply failed? Will we have to wait until the oppressed and suffering people of Riverside and Orange County are forced to take up arms to defend themselves from a grasping and failed state government?"
posted by weston at 3:37 PM on July 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

They can call it Aynrandistan.
posted by wowbobwow at 3:37 PM on July 12, 2011 [20 favorites]

We had this conversation 150 years ago. 650,000 people died. Result: You can't secede from the Union.

But the real question is, why do Conservative Republicans hate America so much?
posted by vibrotronica at 3:37 PM on July 12, 2011 [9 favorites]

Pshaw, Arizona's nothing. You know who's got small government? Somalia! And I'm even prepared to chip in for tickets for any of my fellow Californians looking for a change of scenery. Bon voyage, fuckos!
posted by villanelles at dawn at 3:39 PM on July 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

> We had this conversation 150 years ago. 650,000 people died. Result: You can't secede from the Union.

They aren't seceding from the Union, just from the rest of California.

Reminds me of Jefferson State.
posted by mrzarquon at 3:39 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

To be fair, seceeding from one state to form another is not secession in the civil war sense. If it was, West Virginia would never have been admitted to the union.
posted by feloniousmonk at 3:40 PM on July 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Jeff Stone, a politician from Riverside County, wants 13 conservative Southern California counties to secede and become the country's 51st state.

That's funny, I want that too, but probably for very different reasons.
posted by QuarterlyProphet at 3:40 PM on July 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Why don't they just secede and join Arizona or Nevada?

Hold on there, Buck!
posted by mmrtnt at 3:41 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think I'm going to stop admitting that I was born in Riverside. Quick, someone nominate a better place to claim to be from.
posted by palomar at 3:41 PM on July 12, 2011

But the real question is, why do Conservative Republicans hate America so much?
Because they don't want to live in a country with people who aren't white. Except for Asian people, who are useful for programming computers and daughter-in-laws for their entitled sons. And Mexicans, who can pick vegetables and clean houses. Well, Conservative Republicans, they just don't want to live in the same country as black people. Except for that one nice family down the street who work hard and never complain. But just that one family.
posted by wuwei at 3:41 PM on July 12, 2011 [27 favorites]

vibrotronica: "We had this conversation 150 years ago. 650,000 people died. Result: You can't secede from the Union.

But the real question is, why do Conservative Republicans hate America so much?"

To be fair, they're just talking about seceding from the State, not the Union. To answer your second question, it's because the US is a Liberal Democracy. They'll be happy with the place when we get back to God's plan, that is, a theocratic feudal state.
posted by mullingitover at 3:42 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hey wait a minute, we don't want Riverside!
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 3:43 PM on July 12, 2011

They'll be happy with the place when we get back to God's plan, that is, a theocratic feudal state.

I guess we have to modify the Jesusland map, don't we?
posted by Mister Fabulous at 3:44 PM on July 12, 2011

Short of making I-15 and I-10 toll roads

There's pretty much two places I can think of where there are toll roads in the west. The SF Bay area is one, and it's pretty much all for the bridges. I think it'd be nice if the bridges were tax-supported and free of direct use fees like the rest of the highway system, but I can see arguments that bridges are more resource intensive and might not be covered by the rest of the tax revenue, and they're sure useful if you're driving anywhere.

The other is a couple of the recent Orange County freeways (73, 133, and 241). Near as I can tell, they're shortcuts and/or less crowded by virtue of their toll status. So, it's kindof the market at work, providing roads that people who are better off can take so's not to be bogged down with the rest of the proles.

I don't doubt that toll-converting and maybe even privatizing major portions of freeways up to and including interstates is an idea that would occur to the people pulling this secession stunt.
posted by weston at 3:47 PM on July 12, 2011

I think I'm going to stop admitting that I was born in Riverside. Quick, someone nominate a better place to claim to be from.

Take your pick: El Centro, Hesperia, Lone Pine, Fullerton, Yorba Linda, Midway City, Garden Grove, Irvine, Westminster, Adelanto, Johnson Valley, Inyokern... Or even Fresno, for fuck's sake.
posted by loquacious at 3:48 PM on July 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Short of making I-15 and I-10 toll roads I'm not quite sure how you even begin to balance the budget considering you've got no revenue, no industry, no large population base besides the 300,000 or so in Riverside and most of those are just commuting to LA and spending their money there.

I totally agree with you, but just wanted to point out you're forgetting San Diego (3,000,000 people, evenly split along party lines). And there are ~2,200,000 people in Riverside county.
posted by Thoughtcrime at 3:51 PM on July 12, 2011

To be fair, seceeding from one state to form another is not secession in the civil war sense. If it was, West Virginia would never have been admitted to the union.

W. Va. was formed as a consequence of the Civil War.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:51 PM on July 12, 2011

Short of making I-15 and I-10 toll roads

Federal rules stipulate that you can't toll an already free interstate unless there are major improvements to the roadway that need funding. Major improvements generally have not included maintenance; only expansion or rebuilding of bridges have counted.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 3:51 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Or even Fresno

Fresno is where Bank of America birthed the credit card. I'd be wary of even ostensibly placing my roots under the plume of dark magic that has to have been involved.
posted by weston at 3:52 PM on July 12, 2011 [7 favorites]

> Or even Fresno, for fuck's sake.

You forgot Yermo.
posted by mmrtnt at 3:53 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

They can call it Baja California. Oh wait...
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 3:53 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why bother creating a 51st state? Let's go all out and give them their own country. They'd have a tiny sliver of the coastline, very little water, relatively minimal industry outside of agriculture (and see "very little water" for that issue), San Diego, a big bunch of desert, some backwoods, and a bunch of military training facilities. I'm cool with that as long as we made sure that Yosemite, including Hetch Hetchy, stay with us (and we took the bombers away before we left), since we'd have the Bay Area (yay!), LA (eh, but they can stay), Tahoe, Sacramento and the Delta, most of the coastline, Big Sur, an enormous collection of national parks and forests, massive amounts of great agricultural land, Mt. Shasta, the whole north coast, two of the thirty busiest airports in the world, They would also have to secure their country against those Mexicans on their Southern border, if the immigrants even wanted to go there.

It's not going to happen I know, but I really don't see the harm. I guess we'll always have Fresno...
posted by zachlipton at 3:53 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Right, if it wasn't legal to secede and form another state, it would not have happened during the civil war.
posted by feloniousmonk at 3:55 PM on July 12, 2011

Ideology aside, I can see splitting CA up into three states.

North, Central and Southern CA are so geographically, demographically and culturally different (not to mention the logistical challenges ) that it sort of makes sense.
posted by mmrtnt at 3:55 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I hope they are not expecting to continue using our (norcal) water...
posted by supermedusa at 3:56 PM on July 12, 2011

I totally agree with you, but just wanted to point out you're forgetting San Diego (3,000,000 people, evenly split along party lines). And there are ~2,200,000 people in Riverside county.

Oh they want San Diego?

Take it. It'll give them a fighting chance.
posted by Talez at 3:56 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

(tangent)

There's pretty much two places I can think of where there are toll roads in the west. The SF Bay area is one, and it's pretty much all for the bridges.

There's now also a variable-toll express lane for part of southbound I-680. My impression from six-months-in newspaper stories is that it isn't raising as much revenue as expected; but still, I-580 is also going to get similar toll lanes in both directions.

It coincided with a widening project which presumably made it meet the "major improvments" rule.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:58 PM on July 12, 2011

Right, if it wasn't legal to secede and form another state, it would not have happened during the civil war.

hamburger?
posted by garlic at 3:59 PM on July 12, 2011

"Can they take Florida and Texas with them?"

Sorry, Florida is slated to be a future Caribbean banana-republic. I'm sure Arizona would be perfectly happy to take the slot. As a bonus Arizona has just as much sunshine and old people as Florida.
posted by oddman at 4:00 PM on July 12, 2011

This would be ok with me, since it frees up Northern California to join Oregon, Washington and British Columbia in the new country of Cascadia.
posted by the thing about it at 4:01 PM on July 12, 2011 [18 favorites]

Yea, they haven't thought this through at all, but it's OK with me. Give it couple years and the new name will be Nuevo Mexico Norte.

BTW, vote Latino and vote Tequila Party.
posted by snsranch at 4:02 PM on July 12, 2011

so what would happen at the CA/Mexico border in this "state"?
posted by Bohemia Mountain at 4:03 PM on July 12, 2011

Again with the succession. People.

It was stupid when liberals in Vermont and Arizona suggested it.

It's just as stupid when conservatives in California suggest it.
posted by valkyryn at 4:04 PM on July 12, 2011

Enough with the insane Cascadia talk. Don't you take BC away from me.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 4:07 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I just wanted to step in here briefly and say FUCK YOU, LOS ANGELES!

Thank you. Carry on.
posted by perilous at 4:08 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I hope they are not expecting to continue using our (norcal) water...

Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't most of that water actually under federal jurisdiction?
posted by buggzzee23 at 4:08 PM on July 12, 2011

San Diego (3,000,000 people, evenly split along party lines) Of that 3,000,000 is a vast number of Latino voters who haven't shown at the polls...yet. There are going to major changes in Southern California, but nothing like those silly gringos are thinking. FWIW, I'm very much looking forward to and participating in it!
posted by snsranch at 4:09 PM on July 12, 2011

hahaha. I grew up next to Fontucky and there's a reason they call it that. The IE, the 909 (now 951). Land of raised trucks and lowered expectations.

Fun to think about what this state would look like demographically, linguistically (purely guessing: >50% Hispanic/Spanish), politically, and economically, but overall my gut says it would not be to its residents' best interest.
posted by scelerat at 4:09 PM on July 12, 2011

If it was, West Virginia would never have been admitted to the union.

Using WV as an example here isn't very useful, because WV was created as a direct result of another state seceding from the Union. Virginia as a whole seceded, then several counties chose to repeal the ordinance of succession, forming the Restored Government of Virginia. For political reasons, they were admitted as a new state, West Virginia.

It's not a useful example here, unless we want to posit CA as a whole first seceding.
posted by eriko at 4:09 PM on July 12, 2011

California is the greatest proof the world has ever had that too much democracy is a very bad thing.
posted by koeselitz at 4:11 PM on July 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm saying it's precedent for one region to secede from one state to form a second state, that's all. As far as I know, there's nothing to prevent this from happening in the future, provided all of the other hurdles to statehood are met.
posted by feloniousmonk at 4:11 PM on July 12, 2011

I think I'm going to stop admitting that I was born in Riverside. Quick, someone nominate a better place to claim to be from.

Riverside County itself was born of secession when it split from the Mormon county of San Bernardino to form a more secular government.
posted by buggzzee23 at 4:11 PM on July 12, 2011

Republican dimwit only advocates idiotic policies now that Democratic Governor is in charge and is kicking ass, film at eleven.
posted by mark242 at 4:11 PM on July 12, 2011

They should call it "La La land". Or how about "The Second Envelope".
posted by about_time at 4:17 PM on July 12, 2011

The New Nation States Of The New New World
posted by The Whelk at 4:22 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

California is the greatest proof the world has ever had that too much democracy is a very bad thing.

I think I know what you're getting at, what with the extremely dysfunctional initiative process and a state government that just limps along at the best of times, but I think the root of the problem has more to with badly functioning institutions (in particular, just to choose one thing, terrible media coverage of local government matters) than with a surfeit of democracy. I don't think there's an inherent reason why democracy can't work on a scale as large as that of California state politics, though I tend to agree with the notion that in practice it currently doesn't.
posted by whir at 4:22 PM on July 12, 2011

this is an old old threat that goes nowhere because of all the clout the north would have with congress and the new state with so little and thus unimportant...simply will not happen.
posted by Postroad at 4:23 PM on July 12, 2011

Of course it's legal to form a state from a portion of another state, there's a specific provision for it in Article IV Section 3 of the Constitution. It just requires the consent of both Congress and the legislature of the state(s) giving up territory.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 4:24 PM on July 12, 2011

West Virginia is not the only precedent. In fact, it's atypical (none of the others were as a result of the Civil War).

A bunch of midwestern states -- Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and I think parts of Minnesota -- are formed from land that various original states ceded to the federal government in the late 1780s.

Tennessee was ceded to the federal government by North Carolina in 1790, and became a state in 1796.

Kentucky was part of Virginia until it became its own state in 1792.

Maine was a part of Massachusetts until it became its own state 1820.

Much of Alabama and Mississippi were ceded to the federal government by Georgia.

Parts of what are now Kansas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico were ceded to the federal government by Texas (post-Texas statehood).

I think that New York claimed Vermont as part of itself, but Vermont claimed it was an independent nation (not even part of the USA), so I don't know if that counts.
posted by Flunkie at 4:25 PM on July 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

"We know it's going to be a challenge to form a second state, but it's not a impossible. We're sending a message."

I ATE MY WORM CAN I HAVE ANOTHER ONE?
posted by jimmythefish at 4:27 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

They are willing to take Fresno.
posted by Brian B. at 4:27 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Whenever I see secessionist rubbish espoused by politicians I can't muster any feeling for them other than contempt. Ordinarily, it's the mark of someone who is interested in seizing power for his or her own small group at the expense of everyone else.

If I'm in the minority of opinion on this matter, at least I'm in good company. I can't express it any better than George Washington did in his Farewell Address:

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.
posted by Hylas at 4:27 PM on July 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

The Whelk: I think your New Nation States is missing Wisconsin. /pedantry
posted by epersonae at 4:31 PM on July 12, 2011

Maybe it's just from watching too many episodes of "How the States Got Their Shapes," but there's part of me that thinks if one state breaks off from another, there will be a string of rearrangements in the map.

Just in Wisconsin, Milwaukee and Kenosha have more in common with Chicago than much of the rest of the state and might be better suited forming into a state that represents that view.
posted by drezdn at 4:33 PM on July 12, 2011

The Whelk: I think your New Nation States is missing Wisconsin. /pedantry

If I was re-drawing it now I'd have a bigger Canadian presence, among other things.
posted by The Whelk at 4:34 PM on July 12, 2011

I am not a constitutional scholar and yet I am a thousand percent this is not "legal" and you cannot do this.

Otherwise I create the 800 square foot "State of drjimmy11." I call one senator, anybody want the other?
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:35 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

A STAN FOR EVERY MAN.
posted by The Whelk at 4:35 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just in Wisconsin, Milwaukee and Kenosha have more in common with Chicago than much of the rest of the state and might be better suited forming into a state that represents that view.

Then us folks in Illinois couldn't be referred to as FIB's.
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 4:38 PM on July 12, 2011

drjimmy11, as long as you can get the state legislature of your current state and the federal Congress to back your plan for the State of drjimmy11, it's perfectly Constitutional.
posted by Flunkie at 4:39 PM on July 12, 2011

Tremendous! Then Hawai'i can secede and go back to being a monarchy, with the bonus that no one will need to mess with the flag.
posted by bwg at 4:41 PM on July 12, 2011

Speaking as someone from costal, liberal San Diego, they can have all those other counties and fuck right the fuck off.
posted by Aizkolari at 4:42 PM on July 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

Then Hawai'i can secede and go back to being a monarchy

They're talking about seceding from California, not seceding from the United States. The former, not the latter, is what is Constitutional.
posted by Flunkie at 4:43 PM on July 12, 2011

They should call it "La La land".

Given that it would not include LA, that would be very confusing.

While I would be happy to be rid of the more conservative parts of the state, adding 2 Republican senators in Congress would not be a good thing. If you split up California into 3 states, 2 lib/Dem ones and 1 conservative/Republican one, maybe I could go along with that. (Something like a SF/NorCal state, a central/eastern/southern one along the lines of the one outlined here, and one for LA/Ventura/Santa Barbara).

But this is all silly talk anyway and has 0 chance of happening.
posted by wildcrdj at 4:44 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Even though I know secession is never gonna happen, and would probably fuck us all more somehow, every time someone brings up this idea I start having fantasies of getting all of the hateful fundie conservatives out of my state/country. Then they can go start the Republic of Gilead already and leave us liberals to be happy or burn in hell, instead of constantly trying to turn the state into Gilead.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:46 PM on July 12, 2011

History lesson: Oregon Territory gave birth to the state of Washington in order not to be blamed for Seattle's dreadful traffic.
posted by Cranberry at 4:47 PM on July 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

Riverside County itself was born of secession when it split from the Mormon county of San Bernardino to form a more secular government.

Huh. Knowing that, I can't decide if this new secession thingy is a case of "the more things change, the more they stay the same", or that thing about those who ignore history are doomed to blah blah blah fishcakes, but kind of in reverse and also tea-flavored.
posted by palomar at 4:47 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

*fistbumps Aizkolari*
posted by moira at 4:49 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't believe that Southern California actually exists, so they can go ahead.
posted by jonmc at 4:51 PM on July 12, 2011

Supervisor Jeff Stone, a Republican pharmacist from Temecula

Ugh. Nice to see the town I live in making the news for such a noble cause. Trust me when I say this guy is probably being celebrated as a hero around these parts, where his political views are reflective of the vast majority. This is by far the most conservative area I've ever lived in (including South Orange County which seems like a liberal mecca in comparison).

My wife and I were just discussing earlier this afternoon how nice it would be to move...
posted by The Gooch at 4:51 PM on July 12, 2011

Flunkie: "

Then Hawai'i can secede and go back to being a monarchy

They're talking about seceding from California, not seceding from the United States. The former, not the latter, is what is Constitutional."

I don't think Hawaiians care much about whether it's constitutional.
posted by bwg at 4:53 PM on July 12, 2011

Well then what's stopping them? And how does this change whatever's stopping them?
posted by Flunkie at 4:59 PM on July 12, 2011

Yeah, but what if we were to redraw the state borders based on telephone call data?
posted by chrchr at 5:04 PM on July 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

This again?
posted by linux at 5:07 PM on July 12, 2011

as another metro/coastal, ultra liberal San Diegan, who's only ever lived in metro/coastal, ultra liberal neighborhoods, and resents the sizable military population making you think of us as pink, I am having a hugely visceral reaction to this. maybe this is how Austin feels.
posted by changeling at 5:11 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Split `em up. Call them "North Mexico" and "South Oregon".
posted by blue_beetle at 5:18 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is by far the most conservative area I've ever lived in

There's conservative, and there's crazy. Secessionists are less of the latter and more of the former. Unless I'm confused about what conservatives say they stand for, I'm pretty sure making a new state that is doomed to perpetually suckle at the teat of the remaining 50 (nominally) productive states would violate conservative principles.
posted by Hylas at 5:28 PM on July 12, 2011

Fine, let the Republicans have another 2 Senatebaggers. As long as Puerto Rico and the District come in as states at the same time.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:35 PM on July 12, 2011 [9 favorites]

JerryPandering !
posted by lobstah at 5:41 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

What T.D. Strange said.
posted by sciurus at 6:06 PM on July 12, 2011

I love the combination of racially-charged accusations, the proposed solution being secession, and calling the proposed decalifornicle "South California". You could totally call it East California, but that would clash with the secession theme.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:19 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why not have Northern Virginia secede from Virginia, the Research Triangle secede from North Carolina, Salt Lake City secede from Utah, and Austin secede from Texas? Why let rural conservatives have all the fun with this secession folderol?

Hell, you can even have Key West declared as its own state. Jimmy Buffett would get 3 electoral votes in every presidential election. It'll be awesome.
posted by jonp72 at 6:21 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

"There's now also a variable-toll express lane for part of southbound I-680."

I-15 through the Wasatch Front in Utah is also using variable-toll express lanes.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:22 PM on July 12, 2011

Why is this news? Why do people care?

This is the umpteenth iteration of the same cranky press hit. New York is still (thankfully) a single state. California and Oregon have not carved off bits to to become their own state. And, most importantly of all, Mr.Show has not become a sovereign nation.

This stuff is local news bullshit.
posted by munchingzombie at 6:26 PM on July 12, 2011

This stuff is local news bullshit.

Except for the part where it's getting coverage by Time and WaPo. Ugh.
posted by Tknophobia at 6:27 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

This stuff is local news bullshit.
posted by stbalbach at 6:33 PM on July 12, 2011

decalifornicle
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:19 PM on July 12

Nice work.
posted by The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal at 6:36 PM on July 12, 2011

Short of making I-15 and I-10 toll roads

Actually in San Diego, the 15 has toll express lanes.

as another metro/coastal, ultra liberal San Diegan, who's only ever lived in metro/coastal, ultra liberal neighborhoods, and resents the sizable military population making you think of us as pink, I am having a hugely visceral reaction to this. maybe this is how Austin feels.

As a San Diegan that has lived in Austin, it is a lot like this. I live in a nice blue part of SD but the parts of North and East County are worse than the divide between Austin and WilCo.
posted by birdherder at 6:46 PM on July 12, 2011

To be fair, seceeding from one state to form another is not secession in the civil war sense. If it was, West Virginia would never have been admitted to the union.

Although West Virginia exists because of the Civil War.

And Maine split off from Massachusetts back in that period when states had to be admitted in free/slave pairs and they couldn't find a real new northern state.
posted by madcaptenor at 6:48 PM on July 12, 2011

Unless I'm confused about what conservatives say they stand for, I'm pretty sure making a new state that is doomed to perpetually suckle at the teat of the remaining 50 (nominally) productive states would violate conservative principles.

You are confused about what conservatives stand for. But to be fair, conservatives are confused about what they stand for.
posted by madcaptenor at 6:50 PM on July 12, 2011

New York Times on this. Their map has "South California" in quotes.
posted by madcaptenor at 7:01 PM on July 12, 2011

Also as a San Diegan, f that noise. Maybe Orange and Riverside counties would make a lovely crazy couple but keep my county out of it.

As far as water in Norcal goes, aren't people in SF drinking water from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir? A lake created from a valley in yosemite national park described by John Muir as:

Hetch-Hetchy is the most wonderful and most important feature of the great park, that damming it would destroy it, render it inaccessible, and block the way through the wonderful Tuolumne Cañon

So it's not like Northern California is sin free when it comes to it's usage of water.
posted by dibblda at 7:15 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Two states,
We want two states.
North and South,
Two, two states.

40 million daggers!
40 million daggers!
40 million daggers!
40 million daggers!
posted by multics at 7:19 PM on July 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

I'm cool with that as long as we made sure that Yosemite, including Hetch Hetchy, stay with us

The proposed breakdown has it straddling the state line. No deal.
posted by psoas at 7:29 PM on July 12, 2011

If anyone else thought the name Jeff Stone sounded familiar, it may be because he made some headlines a few years ago when the whole Anonymous vs Scientology thing was in full swing. Riverside county happens to be the home of Scientology's international headquarters known as "Gold Base", and was an obvious target for protests. Stone consistently used church provided materials to discredit and (in some cases) slander Anonymous, in addition to pushing pro-Scientology measures through the Riverside board.

It was actually a pretty fascinating little mini drama involving Anons, the church, Mark Bunker of xenu.net fame, and Riverside County board members with some questionable associations.
posted by I Havent Killed Anybody Since 1984 at 7:35 PM on July 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

Just what the USA needs, yet another low population state with two Senate seats to further tip things towards the crazy end of the spectrum.
posted by sotonohito at 7:56 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Good. As a liberal hoping to move to San Francisco, I'd be glad to not have to deal with the tea baggers in the south. While they're at it, they should take Texas & Florida with them and start their own country and leave the rest of us alone.
posted by mike3k at 8:02 PM on July 12, 2011

Just what the USA needs, yet another low population state with two Senate seats to further tip things towards the crazy end of the spectrum.

This would not be a "low population state". It would be the fifth most populous state in the nation, behind only Texas, the remainder of California, New York, and Florida.

If the 100 senators were apportioned by population, the people living in these counties would, by themselves, deserve four senators.
posted by Flunkie at 8:08 PM on July 12, 2011

North vs south doesn't really make sense, whatever this guy's fantasies. It would make more sense to split the state along the Coast Range - the blue bits are on the water, and the inland counties are generally much more conservative, from Mexico to the Oregon border.
posted by rtha at 8:22 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

How long before they erect the inevitable wall?
posted by dave78981 at 8:25 PM on July 12, 2011

As far as water in Norcal goes, aren't people in SF drinking water from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir? A lake created from a valley in yosemite national park described by John Muir as...

Oh yes. The O'Shaughnessy Dam and the Hetch Hetchy reservoir is an environmental abomination that flooded a massive valley in Yosemite back at the turn of the 20th century. The Hetch Hetchy system is also an incredible engineering wonder that 2.5 million of us rely on for our water supply. It supplies quite clean, soft, and tasty water to millions of us, while freeing up hotly contested water supplies for agricultural uses in the Central Valley and urban uses in LA (a huge city with an appetite for green lawns in the middle of a desert). We also use the electricity it generates to power something like 350 trolley buses that are essentially emission-free, among other uses that make up about 20% of SF's electricity supply.

And keep in mind that destroying the dam would cost many billions of dollars and involves much uncertainty about how to go about restoring a valley of this magnitude. That's after you somehow find a replacement water source that doesn't involve even greater environmental devastation and/or swiping water from other communities with long-standing claims to those resources. For more on this subject, see the CA Department of Water Resources Hetch Hetchy Restoration Study Report.

So sure, we are taking advantage of Hetch Hetchy's devastation whenever we drink, and we should certainly be mindful of that and consider the privileges associated with our actions, but it's a damn useful dam in a state that, this wet year notwithstanding, wants to use a heck of a lot more water than we have.
posted by zachlipton at 8:50 PM on July 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

Fresno has the awesome Cafe Corazon, the Chicken Pie shop, and a geek coworking place called hashtag.
posted by zippy at 9:05 PM on July 12, 2011

If the 100 senators were apportioned by population, the people living in these counties would, by themselves, deserve four senators.

I think we call those "members of the House of Representatives".
posted by spaceman_spiff at 9:13 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yes, spaceman_spiff, I'm aware that senators are not apportioned by population.

(1) You may have noticed the word "if".

(2) I was speaking in response to an implication that because of their (incorrectly assumed) low population, they wouldn't even deserve, in some sense, the two senators that they would get were they to become a state.
posted by Flunkie at 9:18 PM on July 12, 2011

So everybody seems to be assuming that this new state (of just under 11 million people, by the way) would vote overwhelmingly Republican.

But in the proposed state, 1,873,453 voted for Obama, 1,792,553 voted for McCain. You read that right. Obama got 51.1% of the two-party vote in "South California", and would have won it; in terms of partisan split it seems to be somewhere between Indiana and Florida, a bit right of center. (Obama got 53.7% of the two-party vote in 2008.)

The rest of California went 6,401,020 for Obama, 3,219,228 for McCain; that's 66.5% for Obama. This would have been the third most Democratic-voting state in 2008, behind Hawaii and Vermont.

Although if you throw out San Diego county, South California still has just under eight million and McCain would have won it by about two percent. I suspect the purpose of throwing San Diego in is: (1) if you leave San Diego in real California, it's cut off from the rest of the state, and may as well join Mexico; (2) Fresno really doesn't deserve to be the largest-population city in its state.

Presidential election results for 2008, by county.
posted by madcaptenor at 9:25 PM on July 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

As a pretty liberal guy (and I don't afraid of anything) who was raised in San Bernardino County, and left my heart in San Diego, I think this is clearly the work of a grandstanding moron. Of course, that said, the inland empire, the land of my upbringing, never fails to embarrass me, so, what else is new.

However, having moved to the SF Bay area three years ago, I STILL hate it up here. You can barely breathe for all the smug.
posted by mdaugherty82 at 9:30 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can, And Should, The Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park Be Restored?
posted by homunculus at 9:31 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

About 15 years ago, Washington had a rash of county secessionism. It was mostly a gimmick for getting all the wingnut property-rights crankypants agitated so'd they would turnout heavily in some local elections.

I favor "North Mexico" or maybe "Looneytooneyland" if it didn't cause people to mistake it for Canada.
posted by warbaby at 9:39 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

much uncertainty about how to go about restoring a valley of this magnitude

Why? It seems simple enough.

10 TAKE DOWN DAM
20 FOR YEAR = 1 TO 500
30 LEAVE IT ALONE
40 NEXT
50 ADMIRE
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:11 PM on July 12, 2011

All this talk about the Civil War is interesting because the first time there was a call for California to split off from the US was from pro-slavery southern Californians led by Senator William Gwin in the 1850s, who didn't want California's gold to help the North. There was even a plot to seize Federal buildings.
posted by eye of newt at 10:48 PM on July 12, 2011

I completely support this idea. If San Diego wants to stay with the rest of us, great. In exchange, we would be willing to offer Lassen and Modoc?
posted by salvia at 10:57 PM on July 12, 2011

Going to SoCal can be like when you go to visit your dead beat dad on a mandatory custody weekend and hey, at least he has a pool.

*cue scene of Phoebe Cates in a red bikini exiting the pool in slow motion*
/fast times
posted by eddydamascene at 11:55 PM on July 12, 2011

As someone actually living in Orange County, I'm begging you: please don't leave me with these people! I'm already a bald black woman living in beach country, this is worse than being the person trapped with the resident blowhard at a block party.
posted by nuala at 12:04 AM on July 13, 2011 [5 favorites]

Yeah, but what if we were to redraw the state borders based on telephone call data?

Do Idahoans really want to be a part of Utah? The ones I have known would say no. But maybe I am wrong. I really don't think so, though.
posted by Quonab at 12:41 AM on July 13, 2011

I don't get this fantasy that somehow southern California is ultra-tea-baggy and northern California is a liberal paradise. Even among the nine Bay Area counties, there's a huge population of hard-core rightwingers, and you don't have to drive very far to find them. I lived in the eastern part of Contra Costa County and you wouldn't find a more rabid bunch of hardcore rightwingers anywhere in the state. All of the counties in the proposed new state are inland California counties, and half of them aren't even in what most people consider southern California. Fresno, Madera, Visalia, and Bakersfield aren't southern California -- they're central California, or the San Joaquin Valley. A great many of the state's counties would feel right at home in this new state and could basically keep Sacramento as the capital (very rightwing city) and tell most of LA County, San Francisco, Marin, Alameda County, Santa Clara County, parts of Sonoma County, parts of San Diego (the city, not the county), a few liberal-ish enclaves in Orange County, and Humboldt to take a hike and form their own little geographically discontinuous leftist Californiastan. Even that breaks down because (for example) there are many parts of LA County that would love to secede from Los Angeles and the other liberal parts of the county and let them float off into oblivion.
posted by blucevalo at 5:48 AM on July 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

"The New Nation States Of The New New World"

You are right to think Miami would sooner sink into the sea, than join up with Alabama. However, I'm really confident that it would form a new country with Cuba (If they get really ambitious, you can throw in Tampa, Orlando, Puerto Rico and The Dominican Republic. Seriously, they have way more in common with each other than with The South. If they get militaristic add Haiti. (I think they'd have to conquer Haiti. The culture is so different there from the Spanish speaking Caribbean that I think they would have a hard time integrating peacefully.))
posted by oddman at 6:47 AM on July 13, 2011

I'm seeing Orlando as a DMZ
posted by The Whelk at 7:06 AM on July 13, 2011

Or a militantly protected Disney fiefdom.
posted by oddman at 7:30 AM on July 13, 2011

If they want to be Southern California, then fine... they can adjust their map so that they wouldn't be taking Yosemite, stealing water from Mono Lake, and grabbing land that's actually to the north of San Francisco.

We'll be glad to sell them their water... for a price.
posted by markkraft at 8:42 AM on July 13, 2011

Fine, let the Republicans have another 2 Senatebaggers. As long as Puerto Rico and the District come in as states at the same time.


That's actually the only likely scenario. Since around about the time of the closing of the Western frontier, States have tended to be admitted in waves and pairs. 1889-1890, 1912, 1959, etc.
posted by snottydick at 8:58 AM on July 13, 2011

1889-1890, 1912, 1959, etc.

Yeah, that's a boneheaded use of an "etc." Sorry.
posted by snottydick at 9:00 AM on July 13, 2011

I’m for it. Then again, I’m for the US spitting up.
posted by bongo_x at 12:23 PM on July 13, 2011

Hasta la vista!
posted by deborah at 2:54 PM on July 13, 2011

We'll be glad to sell them their water... for a price.

You already did.. To W.H Mulholland, about 100 years ago
posted by buggzzee23 at 3:12 PM on July 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

OC Register reports:
A Riverside County supervisor backed off of his call for 13 counties to secede from the state when fellow supervisors threw cold water on the idea Tuesday night.

As something of a consolation prize, the supervisors endorsed the idea of a statewide convention for local government leaders to discuss possible solutions to the state’s problems – provided no county money was spent on the endeavor.
posted by salvia at 11:28 AM on July 14, 2011

As something of a consolation prize, the supervisors endorsed the idea of a statewide convention for local government leaders to discuss possible solutions to the state’s problems – provided no county money was spent on the endeavor.

Well ok then. If we can't secede, we'll just have a meeting. A big meeting in a nice fancy conference room. You know, the one with the comfy chairs. I guess having a meeting is pretty much the same thing as starting our own state, except we'll only be responsible for the water pitchers and the muffin baskets (mmm, muffins) instead of police and fire and roads and the economy and taxation and a gazillion other things that people would expect if we were running our own state.

I'm sure some big faceless corporation would be happy to pay for us to sit around and chat out of the goodness of their heart, and I bet they aren't planning on getting anything in return for their investment either.
posted by zachlipton at 12:09 PM on July 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

Correction: California secession story

By Associated Press, Published: July 14
LOS ANGELES — In a July 12 story about a Riverside County supervisor’s plan to discuss splitting California in two, The Associated Press erroneously reported, based on information received from the supervisor’s chief of staff, that the only change made during a hearing on the motion was one that restricted county funds from being spent on secession talks. In fact, the proposal was modified to focus the talks on broader improvements to California’s state governance, while retaining secession as an option, and to include officials from throughout the state, not just the counties that would have been invited to join the secession efforts.

What's the opposite of previously?
posted by warbaby at 7:45 AM on July 15, 2011

Can we vote the counties we don't like off the island?
posted by madcaptenor at 8:00 AM on July 15, 2011

Sweet baby titans, now CNN is running a story on it.

So much for "local news bullshit".
posted by Tknophobia at 9:01 AM on July 15, 2011