Campaign launched to put CA secession on Nov. ballot

California flag2Hot on the heels of a high-profile effort to vote California into six separate states, a different kind of political upstart has forged ahead with a long-shot effort to put Golden State secession on the statewide ballot.

Although Louis Marinelli has launched a campaign to represent the San Diego area in the state Assembly, he has also helped found the California National Party, an independence movement angling to put its scheme before voters this November. Marinelli told Vice the name was “inspired by the Scottish National Party,” with its Yes California campaign serving as “a nod to Yes Scotland, the unsuccessful campaign in support of a ‘Yes’ vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.”

For now, Yes California has not done much to raise expectations to Scottish heights. “So far, the metrics are not encouraging,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “Last year, the group raised $10,000, Marinelli said. So far, only 300 people have signed up as volunteers on his website.”

A string of failures

Californians’ rogue experiments with independence have a habit of attracting more notice than support. With his Six Californias initiative, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper “spent $5.2 million on signature-gathering, but couldn’t come close to the needed number of voter autographs,” the Los Angeles Daily News recalled. “It was the worst failure in the modern era for any proposed citizen initiative with respectable financial support.” Only the longstanding effort to carve a rural statelet from southern Oregon and Northern California has kept up a trace of momentum; advocates “took their proposed secession plan to the Legislature early this year, where it got a modicum of press coverage but was never taken seriously,” according to the Daily News.

The breakaway movement, which would create a state of Jefferson, has played neatly into the hands of observers for whom secession is virtually synonymous with Confederate-style backwoods values. “Cut off from the seats of power by geography, alienated by the state’s left-leaning politics and tendency toward regulation, enduring stubbornly high unemployment, facing the decimation of traditional industries such as logging, and harboring few prospects for economic growth, these disaffected citizens — overwhelmingly white and mostly conservative — share many of the concerns about central state overreach as the militia members who recently took control of a wildlife refuge in Oregon,” as the New York Daily News recently noted, allowing that Jeffersonians “are committed to a political solution rather than an armed rebellion.”

Turning left

Yet the nascent movement for an independent California has underscored how secession has become increasingly attractive to progressives rather than reactionaries. “I think a lot of the reasons why there’s so much gridlock in Washington is because California is there with its own set of values,” Marinelli told Newsy. “We could do universal health care, which is something I’d be for. We could go to universal education.”

Even on common defense, Marinelli implied that an independent California should pass on interventions unpopular with California’s left-leaning electorate. “We’re going to continue to do commerce with the Americans and be a part of the Americans in other areas, such as military involvement when our goals are aligned,” he said. “Fundamentally, we have a problem with the United States,” he told the Times. “Ideologically they are very different from us — their agenda, their militarism, their imperialism and colonialism. The United States is always at war. We don’t want to bomb other countries.”

“Marinelli supports a single-payer health care system, reproductive rights, public financing for political campaigns, a path to citizenship for immigrants who are in California illegally, and criminal justice and police reform,” according to the Times. “He thinks the Pledge of Allegiance is propaganda,” the paper added, and, in an ironic twist, “believes that California does not receive its fair share of federal dollars.”

12 comments

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  1. Dyspeptic
    Dyspeptic 2 March, 2016, 11:27

    California voters are notoriously foolish, ignorant and dirt dumb, but even they won’t fall for this nonsense. We would end up with a constitution word for word the same as that of the Soviet Union, and worth about as much in legal terms.

    Besides, it’s not as if Commiefornia gets to decide this unilaterally. I don’t know what Marinelli’s game is here (too early for an April fools day prank) but it can’t really be secession. Maybe he just likes the modicum of attention this will garner. Beats spending all of your time in mommy’s basement playing video games and eating stale pizza.

    Maybe he should try getting a real job and becoming a productive member of society. Just a thought.

    Reply this comment
  2. BobP
    BobP 2 March, 2016, 12:16

    .. and we will call ourselves “The State of Jefferson”.
    Google it as it is an interesting part of California history and not that old either.

    Reply this comment
    • StateOfJefferson.us
      StateOfJefferson.us 3 March, 2016, 12:30

      Join the Movement. Call the cry of accountability. Call the cry of Transparency. Call the cry of equal representation under the law. Call the cry of self determination.

      Reply this comment
  3. InYerFace
    InYerFace 2 March, 2016, 12:39

    Get a day job.

    Reply this comment
  4. Bill - San Jose
    Bill - San Jose 2 March, 2016, 18:33

    “California voters are notoriously foolish, ignorant and dirt dumb, but even they won’t fall for this nonsense. We would end up with a constitution word for word the same as that of the Soviet Union, and worth about as much in legal terms.”

    GOSPEL.

    Afterall, this is the Soviet Socialist Republik of Kalifornia

    But I still say the split of CA into six states is brilliant. It would increase our representation in DC from two senators to twelve senators. We have two dummies representing 40M people. Pretty stupid if you ask me.

    Reply this comment
    • T Ted CWD Hero
      T Ted CWD Hero 2 March, 2016, 20:59

      Billo— While I agree we are a dumb people– it aint our socialist leanings…I mean you clowns have Trump, Carson, Cruz and the little thirsty kid senator—–I mean…..lmao—–50 plus % 0f Repubs think Obama is a Muslim!

      Dumb asses abound!

      Reply this comment
  5. Ted. Mentor to the doomed....Builder of the FUTURE!
    Ted. Mentor to the doomed....Builder of the FUTURE! 2 March, 2016, 20:52

    Bwahahaha conservative whack job fantasies……undoing the repub party and electing Clinton!

    Not bad after all!!

    Reply this comment
  6. Queeg
    Queeg 2 March, 2016, 21:47

    Comrades

    Relax……the frog is about cooked. Will be too too hard to wean the masses off free stuff.

    THEY are good at climbing or tearing down HOA gates…..so……be nice…..produce and pay.

    Reply this comment
  7. SeeSaw
    SeeSaw 3 March, 2016, 11:11

    This is the sixth of Marinelli’s masterpieces in signature circulation the past year. Five have failed to qualify and this one will meet the same fate later this month. I love my state and it is not going anywhere. Hopefully the fee increase from $200 to $2000 to launch an initiative will slow down such madness and encourage the voters to consider real issues for CA.

    Reply this comment
    • Rex the Wonder Dog!
      Rex the Wonder Dog! 3 March, 2016, 19:24

      We were worried about you after you did not post any comments for a few weeks there seesaw….thought the worst, you had kicked the bucket….

      Reply this comment
      • T Ted
        T Ted 4 March, 2016, 08:36

        LOL POODLE SS has better things to do— but she, like me, live in your head so you HAVE to post everyday!

        Slave troll
        lmao hurry!

        Reply this comment
  8. desmond
    desmond 6 March, 2016, 03:39

    Probably preparing for the local National Socialist pot luck honoring the new crop of Obama youth…no bagels and lox allowed.

    Reply this comment

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