SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 2) by butthurt on Thursday November 24 2016, @06:25AM
A minor point: the San Francisco area isn't as populous as you imply; for census purposes it's the 11th most populous metropolitan area. The Dallas area is the fourth most populous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas [wikipedia.org]
[...] total say over an entire country with many varied local cultures for which they have absolutely no understanding or caring.
You exaggerate, but I agree that a pitfall of democracy is the tendency to act against the interests of minority groups. However, weighting people's influence according to where they live makes it more likely that the interests of the majority won't be served. Jeremy Bentham would not approve.
> I say this as a Green voting lefty [...]
According to Breitbart News,
Trump won Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral college votes, by 68,236 votes, Wisconsin, with its 10 electoral college votes, by 27,257 votes, and Michigan, with its 16 electoral college votes, by 13,107 votes.
Had those 108,600 votes gone to Hillary Clinton, she would have won the presidency with a a 278 to 260 electoral college victory over Trump.
-- http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/11/113000-votes-pa-wi-mi-gave-trump-56-electoral-college-votes/ [breitbart.com]
Jill Stein is trying to raise funds for a count of the votes in those three states.
http://jillstein.org/recount [jillstein.org]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday November 24 2016, @08:02AM
I'm really mad at Stein over this. If Clinton wins, progressive values are dead for anywhere from 8 to 20 years. With Trump, a lefty stands a chance in a mere four years and Democrats won't sit around silent while their president guts the Bill of Rights and gets us into a nuclear conflagration over pipelines in Syria. Clinton would have to see all three state go her way though, which is pretty unlikely.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Thursday November 24 2016, @09:22AM
Don't repeat Breitbart maths, they ain't too bright. Had 54301 of those votes gone to HC, she would have won, as she'd have 54301 more, and Trump would have 54301 fewer.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves