San Bernardino County, California’s largest geographically, will put the question of seceding from the state on the ballot in November. It is so fed up with California’s leaders, with no prospect for change, that it is seriously considering leaving to become its own state.
The county’s Board of Supervisors recently approved the ballot measure, which will ask voters whether the county should “study and advocate for all options to obtain the county’s fair share of State funding up to and including secession from the State of California.” A recent poll shows over 65 percent of county residents are in favor of the initiative.
Despite how deep blue and progressive is California, by geography most of California is conservative. It consists primarily of farmland, forests, and desert. San Bernardino County borders Los Angeles County to the west, and Arizona and Nevada to the east. It has about 2.1 million residents, which would make it larger than about 15 states. Most of it is as red as any U.S. state. It’s like Oklahoma being governed by Gavin Newsom. I don’t think most Oklahomans would take too kindly to that.
The movement is being led by San Bernardino real estate developer Jeff Barum, who is frustrated by a host of California policies, including its building regulations designed to fight climate change that make development so difficult. “[California’s leaders] are not serious about the issues. They’re not trying to change anything. They’re just playing politics, trying to look good, sound good, so they can get reelected,” he said.
Barum’s secession plan is out of desperation. He recognizes there simply are not the numbers in the state necessary to make a change. “With the way things are in California right now, I don’t know if there’s any hope for California,” he told the board in support of the measure. The rural areas are greatly outnumbered in terms of population by the coastal and metropolitan areas. California’s progressive policies may be welcomed in Los Angeles and San Francisco, but not in the inland areas.
America’s founders believed that the best government was local government. It should be as close to the people as possible. The more it is concentrated in a remote government the more dangerous it becomes. They also believed that any government not based on the consent of the governed can be justifiably overthrown and replaced. They were referring of course to Great Britain, but for those living in California farm country, Gavin Newsom is as bad or worse than King George. Like the colonists, they no doubt feel like they are subject to “taxation without representation.”
California is just too big. It is the largest state by population and trails only Texas and Alaska in geography. There have been numerous efforts over the years to break it up. Most recently in 2018 a measure to split the state in three received enough signatures to be placed on the ballot. But it got hung up in the courts and never made it to the ballot.
The U.S. Constitution expressly allows for such a scenario. It provides that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State ... without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.” But the California legislature as presently constituted would never approve the secession. While it would further cement Democrat control over the legislature, it already has a super-majority, so it would be unnecessary. And the state would lose significant tax revenue, which likely far exceeds what it spends in the county, considering its needs are not as extensive as the metropolitan areas. (If the measure is approved the county will conduct a study to see if it’s getting its “fair share” of state funding.)
But most significantly and guaranteed to doom any such legislation is the fact that the Democrats will not want to create a 51st state that would likely produce two additional Republican senators to the U.S. Senate.
So, the county’s residents may sit in a situation similar to the colonists, with no political answer to the rule of King Gavin. They are left to ponder, as our founders did, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another ...”
