Undertones of disunion

In California, it’s the time of the season

IN THE Golden State, it’s almost seasonal. Not the Santa Ana winds, not the pageantry of the Rose Bowl parade. Not even the self-adulation of the haute bourgeoisie in Oscars (or any) season.

California’s new seasonal enterprise seems to be secession. (And you thought Cali had nothing in common with Texas!) Talk of secession is emanating from California’s exasperated Inland Empire, where many residents are chafing against the state’s high tax rates, costs of living, and restrictive measures related to the pandemic.

In November, a ballot measure narrowly passed in San Bernardino County directing elected officials to study the possibility of seceding from California, CBS reports.

This latest attempt to carve a new state from geographically and culturally diverse California won’t go anywhere. Just as more than 200 secession attempts—to carve up the state into as many as six states—haven’t since California was admitted to the union as the 31st state. As the California State Library aptly points out, “There have been more attempts to divide California than anniversaries of its statehood in 1850.”

Secession would require approval from both the California legislature and U.S. Congress. But secession talk is representative of the frustration felt by many Californians trying to function within a political entity that represents not only the most populous state, but is the third-largest state in size and would represent the world’s fifth-largest economy, were it a sovereign nation. (Per Bloomberg, California is poised to overtake Germany as No. 4.)

We don’t envy California’s leadership, tasked with taming a political and cultural leviathan. Those of us in Arkansas think we offer vast diversity, geographic and otherwise. Imagine the differences between Los Angeles and Modoc National Forest.

In 2018, a measure to split California into three states made it to the ballot. The proposal would’ve created a Northern California (roughly Fresno up), a Southern California (the mostly mountainous and desert Inland Empire east of Los Angeles to the Nevada and Arizona borders) and finally California proper, the central coast and traditional SoCal metros of Los Angeles and San Diego.

Then there’s the would-be State of Jefferson, whose residents have sought expat status for almost a century now. Rural and in some ways more conservative, Jefferson represents California north of Sacramento and the Bay Area as well as parts of southern Oregon. Think Bigfoot Country.

Several secession attempts have been made by self-proclaimed Jeffersonians. Road signs and other adornments still welcome visitors to the State of Jefferson, which certainly exists as a state of mind if not a state of the union.

Back in the Inland Empire, local officials tell CBS that frustration is growing over how Sacramento spends tax dollars. San Bernardino County leaders say the growing county isn’t getting its fair share.

Jeffersonians and 2018’s three-state measure aside, most secession efforts represent symbolic gestures designed to get the state capital’s attention. But right now, Sacramento has other priorities. And California takes in too much federal money and wields too much power, political and otherwise, for its politicians to enable a breakup.

We’d give a bit of advice to those California secessionists, some words of wisdom that we frequently enough have to pass on to our cousins in Texas:

Secession? We’ve tried it before. It didn’t work out well for anybody.