First step towards becoming 51st state.
RURAL KALIFORNIA (PNN) - January 17, 2018 - A group called “New Kalifornia” has taken its first step towards carving the Golden State in two - issuing a “declaration of independence” which would incorporate most of the state’s rural counties - while coastal counties from the northern San Francisco Bay Area to the southern tip of Los Angeles would remain part of the existing state.
Founder Paul Preston said, “Well, it’s been ungovernable for a long time. High taxes, education, you name it, and we’re rated around 48th or 50th from a business climate and standpoint in Kalifornia. 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 group is serious about this effort - printing pamphlets citing authority granted in the Constitution “to provide a republican form of government as guaranteed by Article IV, Section 4,” which co-founder Robert Paul Preston says has not been the case in Kalifornia for a long time.
One of New Kalifornia’s pamphlets reads:
“The current state of Kalifornia has become governed by a tyranny. It is time to take action. The Duty of the People who are suffering the long train of abuses and usurpations at the hands of a tyrannical government is to abolish and make new a government by the People and for the people under God. The process begins when a state’s legislature first votes to split the state. Once the measure, in the form of a resolution, passes both the Kalifornia Assembly and Senate, it is submitted to Congress.”
The group also recognizes the need to start out with training wheels. Co-founder Tom Reed admits, “Yes. We have to demonstrate that we can govern ourselves before we are allowed to govern.”
The group is organized with committees and a council of county representatives, but says it will take 10 to 18 months before it is ready to fully engage with the State legislature.