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from the you-can-go-your-own-way-♩♫♩♫ dept.
Supporters of a plan for California to secede from the union took their first formal step Monday morning, submitting a proposed ballot measure to the state attorney general's office in the hopes of a statewide vote as soon as 2018.
Marcus Ruiz Evans, the vice president and co-founder of Yes California, said his group had been planning to wait for a later election, but the presidential election of Donald Trump sped up the timeline.
"We're doing it now because of all of the overwhelming attention," Evans said.
The Yes California group has been around for more than two years, Evans said. It is based around California taxpayers paying more money to the federal government than the state receives in spending, that Californians are culturally different from the rest of the country, and that national media and organizations routinely criticize Californians for being out of step with the rest of the U.S.
Could California go it alone?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @10:22PM
Why not let Oregon and Washington State join, and maybe Nevada? Left alone, there wouldn't be enough national Democrat votes anymore in what's left of the US to counter red voters. Without CA's votes, DC wouldn't have enough blue influence to counter red representatives. The rest of the blue states would be stuck with red rulers, which I'm sure they don't want.
How about a giant upside-down "U" shaped nation that includes the West and East coasts and the upper north? Idaho, Montana, and N. Dakota may not want in, though splitting the blue sections between coasts.
Lincoln should have let the South go. The South always has been listening to a different beat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @04:45AM
As noted near the top, the separation of N.Cal, Oregon and Washington State is discussed in "Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston" by Ernest Callenbach, 1975. Worth a read to see just how far utopian ideals can be stretched.