‘New California’ Movement Wants To Create New Territory Independent From ‘Tyrannical’ State Government

A “New California” movement says it wants to split the coastal state in half, letting “right-wingers” create their own economy and governmental structure separate from the leftists who rule in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Robert Paul Preston and Tom Reed say they’re leading a movement to break off rural and southern California territories, occupied mostly by people who aren’t thrilled with the rules and regulations — and especially the taxes — levied by politicians closer to the coasts.

According to Fox News, the movement declares that, “after years of over taxation, regulation, and mono party politics the State of California and many of its 58 Counties have become ungovernable,” and that those same counties are now “under a tyrannical form of government that does not follow” basic “Constitutional requirements.”

“There’s something wrong when you have a rural county such as this one, and you go down to Orange County which is mostly urban, and it has the same set of problems, and it happens because of how the state is being governed and taxed,” the movement’s leaders told CBS News.

They say the process, which would require a petition, then an agreement from the California assembly (as well as the assent of Congress) could take up to two years, but they’re serious about it. They even have a Declaration of Independence listed on their website.

A similar sort of “secession” was proposed in 2016, just after Donald Trump was elected, but that would have seen the whole state of California secede from the Union in order to “punish” red states who voted for the president.

In this case, though, left-leaning Californians aren’t necessarily opposed, though their response to the project has been mostly along the lines of “go ahead and try it.”