More Californians — but slightly fewer Americans — would support the Golden State’s withdrawal from the Union, according to a new poll feeding attention around a nascent movement to achieve a lawful, peaceful secession.

“About 32 percent of Californians want to create their own country, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found, including many Democrats who are frustrated with the election of President Trump,” the Hill reported. “Pollsters surveyed 500 Californians between Dec. 6 and Jan. 19. Nationally, 22 percent of respondents favor secession, they found” — a figure, like the California number, sure to have included some people with federalist or libertarian interests in seeing a discussion over the state’s status change.

“Still, half of Californians opposed the idea,” the Los Angeles Times reported, “though Democrats were more inclined to support it than Republicans. The survey found that 60 percent of Republicans gave the idea of peacefully seceding a thumbs down compared with 48 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of independents.”

In 2014, 24 percent of respondents nationwide were found to be amenable to California secession. But in-state, the new percentage represented a big jump. “The 32 percent support rate is sharply higher than the last time the poll asked Californians about secession, in 2014, when one-in-five or 20 percent favored it around the time Scotland held its independence referendum and voted to remain in the United Kingdom,” Newsmax noted. 

Parting ways

Although peaceful secession has long been confined to the realm of political fantasy, California’s perceived increased deviation from broader political trends nationwide has helped ensure the scheme a prominent place in the popular imagination and the press. “Even though California is the most populous state in the union and has the sixth-largest economy in the world, secession would be, realistically speaking, very difficult,” as the San Francisco Chronicle noted. “Two-thirds of Congress and three-quarters of U.S. states (at least 38) would need to approve of the creation of an amendment that would allow for the legality of the state’s withdrawal.” But California Democrats, leery of losing ground on several fronts, have taken advantage of the state’s big popular vote margin in favor of Hillary Clinton to promise a continuation of their hallmark policies. 

“It may not be ‘Calexit’ — the name of a decidedly quixotic campaign for California to withdraw from the union — but it is turning into what is, for all intents and purposes, a slow-motion secession,” the New York Times suggested. “California is becoming to Mr. Trump what Texas — which is as Republican as California is Democratic — was to President Obama: a sea of defiance and a potential source of unending legal and legislative challenges.” On the other hand, “it will be difficult for California to promote the kind of spending program[s] lawmakers want to make up for cuts in Washington, particularly on health care,” the Times observed, complicating the rosy picture summoned by secessionist leaders of a prosperous march to the beat of the state’s own drum. 

Style or substance

For members of Yes California, the quixotic group working hardest toward secession, the increased popularity of a break with the union came as welcome news that seemed to square with their expectations. “We always thought that if we just connected with the people who thought about this, but didn’t tell their friends and family because they would be seen as kooky and weird, that the quiet population would become vocal,” as Marcus Evans, vice president of Yes California, told the Sacramento Bee. 

Nevertheless, growing support could be largely symbolic — a familiar way of expressing dissatisfaction with national politics. “California isn’t the only state which has flirted with abandoning the U.S.,” as HotAir pointed out. “Prior to the election, Public Policy Polling, which often asks gag questions intended to embarrass Republicans, found that 40 percent of Texans would consider secession if Clinton won the election.”

To borrow one metaphor, California’s housing market has become a double-edged sword, reminiscent of the bonanza days before the 2008 economic crisis. That’s why, to borrow another, it has also become a political football. With residents increasingly priced out of the state’s coastal metropolises, politicians and policymakers have scrambled for an edge, creating a controversy reverberate across the local, state and federal levels.

Southland struggles

In the Los Angeles area, where housing in some neighborhoods is among the country’s hottest, homelessness has grown apace. Those nearer the middle have also begun feeling the squeeze. “Incomes across California are generally higher than those in other parts of the nation. It’s just that the cost of living, along with taxes, can make it hard to keep your head above water,” as the LA Weekly noted.

In a recent analysis calculating the best states to make a living, the Weekly observed, California’s high average wages failed to offset its high taxes and cost of living, netting a sixth-worst ranking overall. “Even those of you who earn L.A. County’s median per capita income of $27,749 — and many don’t — have a hard time making rent and finding affordable transportation,” the Weekly concluded.

A northern boom

In Silicon Valley, meanwhile, statistics told a similar story. “The median sales figure for a home in the county hit $900,000 in May, according to CoreLogic, which tracks the real estate market. The average rent for a two-bedroom dwelling in San Jose has jumped to $2,300 a month. Overall, county property values have reached a record $409 billion, Assessor Larry Stone announced,” the San Jose Mercury News reported.

The numbers reflected what some characterized as an economic dilemma, wherein good opportunities for employment decrease good opportunities for housing. “Between 2010 and 2014, the local economy created 189,000 new jobs and lured in 113,000 new county residents, Joint Venture Silicon Valley data indicates. Concern, though, is mounting that extreme housing costs might begin to strangle the economy’s growth,” according to the Mercury News.

The Texas comparison

Budget battles

California’s housing challenges have intensified pressure on Gov. Jerry Brown to give up his effort to allocate money from a federal settlement with mortgage lenders into the state budget. “A Sacramento County judge found that the governor and state Legislature unlawfully diverted most of a fund that was part of a $25 billion settlement between five major banks and nearly every state in 2012,” as Associated Press noted.

“Brown’s attorneys argued the state had the discretion to use that money in the state budget. But the judge sided with the community assistance groups in ruling the money should be used to help California homeowners affected by the mortgage crisis. The ruling by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley was issued last month, but it has not been finalized.”

Brown has the option to appeal, but has not yet determined whether or not he will do so.

Farmer Bros., founded in Los Angeles in 1912, notified Torrance officials on Feb. 5 of its plans in coming months to lay off about 350 workers, in compliance with a state law requiring advance notice of significant workforce cuts. The company’s 49,000-square-foot headquarters is on South Normandie Avenue in Harbor Gateway in southwest Los Angeles, but its corporate mailing address is in nearby Torrance.

Farmer Bros. stock has yo-yoed in NASDAQ trading in recent years, but it is considered a durable, well-positioned survivor in its primary business of providing coffee to national restaurant chains, convenience stores, Las Vegas casinos and corporate break rooms.

In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014, the company reported net sales of $528 million and gross profits of $196 million.

It got a big boost in 2012 when it added McDonald’s to its client list. But its 2009 moves to buy the Coffee Bean chain and the restaurant-delivery branch of the Sara Lee company proved a drag on Farmer Bros. for years as it struggled to integrate its new resources and streamline operations. Coffee Bean also suffered because of Farmer Bros. slowness to offer specialty and exotic coffees that drive up profit margins at Starbucks, Peet’s Coffee and other competitors.

The company plans to maintain a distribution center in California while building “new state-of-the-art manufacturing, distribution and corporate headquarters facility designed to make the company more competitive and better positioned to capitalize on growth opportunities” in a less expensive state.

The estimated operational savings are $12 million to $15 million a year, according to a Farmer Bros. statement.

The cost of relocation is expected to be mostly covered by the sale of the Normandie Avenue site purchased in 1961 that is now home to corporate headquarters and production facilities. The county’s estimate of the property’s value is $22 million, but a Farmers Bros. spokesman told South Bay reporters that the company believes it can get $28 million to $35 million for the site.

As is now well known, outmigration from California has reached historic highs. Although just 2.6 percent of the large Texas population is now Californian in origin, Texas has received the largest number of Californians from any state in absolute terms. As The New York Times reports, Texas is now home for almost 680,000 people born in California — a figure that excludes non-native Californians who picked up stakes and relocated to the Lone Star State.

Number-crunchers have not drilled down much into the demographic details of the California-to-Texas migration path. But it’s not hard to understand what kind of Golden Staters would be especially drawn to the move.

A successful jump to Texas is aided by factors such as a well paying job that can relocate or translate into the same or better employment. But cultural reasons are among the motives for a self-induced transfer. Californians capable of moving are apt to consider Texas because they are dissatisfied with their own state’s high taxation, high unemployment and extensive government intrusions.

The same holds true if they’re unhappy with the public education system, the legacy of illegal immigration, or the political party that has dominated California politics for years on end.

In short, California Republicans are especially primed to become Texans — and Texas, under Gov. Rick Perry, is especially primed to welcome them.

Playing the inside game

That sort of synergy is clearly no coincidence. But the connection runs even deeper than the cultural and political climate in the two states. The “new” Perry — the more confident, competent figure that emerged from the wreckage of Perry’s bungled 2012 primary campaign for president — is not quite as home-grown Texan as some might believe. Rather than digging down deeper into his home state roots, Perry turned for help to an outsider with a powerful political pedigree — in California.

His name is Jeff Miller, a consultant volunteering a full suite of services to Perry. Miller rose to prominence fundraising and advising former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s among the most plugged-in and well regarded of California Republicans. But, in a sign of the condition of his state’s party politics, Miller is making huge waves — and spending lots of time — in Texas.

As the Texas Tribune reported, Perry’s inner circle feels no shame in heaping praise on Miller. Described as a “perfect extension” of Perry, “the one that has the governor’s ear,” Miller is said to supply the “focus and leadership that was missing” in the Perry camp.

An alternate California

The strange consequence of the arrangement is that Rick Perry 2.0 has become something of a shadow governor of California. Not only is he acting the way a Republican running the state might act; he’s actively recruiting talent and leadership away from the Golden State — and not just in politics.

Jaws dropped, for instance, when Perry succeeded in luring Elon Musk’s SpaceX away from California — where credulous legislators in Sacramento bent over backwards to secure what critics described as the most flagrant kind of crony-capitalist tax deals. Assembly Bill 777 was hurriedly passed to secure a raft of tax exemptions for SpaceX activities, leading The Wall Street Journal to slam state Democrats as Musk’s “Sacramento Pay Pals.” As the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported, the Texas deal will see $85 million and 300 jobs flow into the Brownsville metropolitan area, among the nation’s poorest.

Economy

Similar criticism, however, has not attached to Perry’s creative approach to building the Texas economy. With Miller at the helm, the importance of California to that strategy is clear.

Notably, Miller isn’t the only California Republican putting down Texas political roots. In 2011, Texas became home to former Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine. An influential officeholder representing nearly half a million people, DeVore’s resume included time spent in the California National Guard and in the state’s aerospace industry. He was the model Republican to bail on his home state and make inroads in Texas.

Now, he’s Vice President of Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. In an op-ed at National Review, DeVore summed up the rationale behind his reinvention simply: Just by looking at “the two states’ respective balance sheets,” it was clear that “Texas’s legislature is run by makers and California’s by takers.”

That’s a narrower pitch than many California Democrats will appreciate. But California Republicans in Texas exile don’t want a scattershot approach. They’ve already seen spectacular gains in attracting political and business talent.

Now, it seems, they’re refining their message and their outreach. If the buzz around Rick Perry continues to build, it’s likely  the governor will frame a new presidential campaign around the intriguing idea that Texas shows America what California could be — if it wasn’t run by Democrats.

But this summer, we’re seeing something freaky. Prices are going down, even with unrest in many oil-producing nations and rising tensions throughout the Middle East. The Christian Science Monitor has the details:

The average US gas price is now $3.52 per gallon, according to a Thursday report released by automotive group AAA, making current prices the lowest since March of this year. This July, US consumers saw a bigger drop in gas prices than in any July over the last six years. The price at the pump fell every day but one over the course of the month, according to AAA. Gas prices generally rise in the summer months, as Americans hit the road and drive up demand for gas. The federal government also mandates that refineries produce a more costly, lower-emission blend of gas in the summer – and those increased costs are passed onto motorists. …

Though forecasters expected that expanded domestic oil production would translate into good prices for consumers, they couldn’t have predicted prices quite this low.

July gas prices drop by amount they usually increase

Gas prices have averaged going up 16 cents in July in the U.S. This July, they went down 16 cents.

The fracking revolution is real. The 21st century was supposed to be when green-energy sources took over from fossil fuels. But instead, fossil fuels are having a renaissance, almost entirely based in the U.S.

It’s why the U.S. is now the world’s leading producer of both oil and natural gas. It’s why a nation that used to consider energy independence a major foreign-policy goal could soon be on the brink of becoming a major exporter of oil and natural gas. And it’s why we see freaky things like plunging gasoline prices in the summer in a world of rising unrest and discord.

California could join in this Texas- and North Dakota-led revolution. Occidental Petroleum believes the state has more recoverable oil than Texas and North Dakota combined.

But so long as the green religionists control so much of state government, the Golden State is likely to stay on the sidelines — and only enjoy the indirect benefits of fracking: lower gas prices. Not the direct benefits of well-paying jobs and a revenue gusher.

Great. Just great.

Joe Mathews presents

Yes, California has an above-average unemployment rate and other economic problems, and many of our people and companies are relocating or expanding to states like Texas that offer cheaper living and generous economic incentives. But there’s another way to look at these departures of Californians and California companies: as a colonization of Texas and the rest of the country. 

This colonization is not a sign of decline but of our success. Texas and other states are trying to steal our culture, our companies, and our jobs because we have so many things worth stealing.

If that’s the case, then Michigan is an even bigger “success.” When I got out of the U.S. Army in Feb. 1982, I returned to my native Great Lakes State. Unemployment was a Great Depression-level 16 percent. People were streaming out for Texas or wherever, bringing with them our Michigan charm and tolerance for cold weather.

I drove my father’s car around the Detroit area for weeks looking for work. This was a place where, just nine years before, anyone with a heartbeat could get a great factory job paying the equivalent in 2014 dollars of $120,000 a year. Nothing.

Eventually I ended up back in journalism — but in Washington, D.C. Then I came to California in 1987 during the boom times under Republican President Reagan, who cut national taxes; and Republican Gov. George Deukmejian, who in 1987 actually refunded to taxpayers the tax money the state didn’t need.

By contrast, Michigan’s population actually declined in the last decade. Detroit just went bankrupt, and in 60 years has lost 2/3 of its 2 million population.

If that “success” pattern holds for California, its population will drop from 38 million today to 12.7 million in 2074. That will please anti-people environmentalists and the California Coastal Commission, as the state, as actually has happened to Detroit, returns to the wilderness.

It’s insanely annoying how so many California defenders simply ignore basic facts like Texas is creating more middle-class jobs or that Texas’ Latino and black students do better than California’s in K-12 test scores such as the NAEP.

But it’s also pretty telling that so many Californians who tout Texas don’t acknowledge that for lots and lots of people, California’s lifestyle is so vastly more appealing that they’d rather live in a condo here than a 2,800-foot ranch home there.

I’m in that camp. I reject the idea that Texas is some primitive backwater. But where I live in San Diego, the weather is going to be awesome 330 days a year, not 50 days a year. And if you’re a foodie, I know people tout Austin. It’s not Socal. The 20,000 square miles of California from San Bernardino to the coast to the Mexican border have a staggering variety of great ethnic food. The other I day I had sisig, a Filipino pork dish I didn’t know about until last year, and my life felt more complete. Move over, bacon.

A Texas city that seems modeled on … Irvine!

So any kind of CA vs. TX comparison that skips past the talking points is to be welcomed. Now Joe Mathews has just such a piece in which he writes about his road trip to Texas and how dazzled he was not by the state in general but by a suburb of Dallas that sounds like it was modeled on … Irvine!

Here’s Joe, relating his experience with the company-relocation recruiters of Frisco, Texas:

“What they talked about most was children — and their education.

“They told the story well. Frisco has one of the fastest growing school districts in the country, adding thousands of students every year. Today, nearly a third of residents are kids, and with good reason.

“Texas is full of giant high schools that produce huge football teams and bands. But Frisco, at considerable cost, has chosen to limit its high schools to no more than 2,100 students. The smaller school approach reflects a philosophy that every child in town should be ‘known by name and need.’ This strategy had worked. In a 2013 Dallas Morning News list of the best neighborhoods for public schools in the north Texas region, eight of the top 10 neighborhoods were in the Frisco school district.

“My recruiters emphasized the lengths to which Friscoans will go to support their schools. Voters just approved a $775 million school construction bond (a comparably sized bond in the Los Angeles Unified School District would be more than $20 billion). Despite public criticism of the bond as too big and risky, the measure passed with nearly 80 percent of the vote.

“… such family-centered investment didn’t stop with schools. Frisco has more than 40 park sites and is in the process of turning some of its most valuable land into a 380-acre centerpiece, Grand Park. There are all kinds of businesses and housing development — from gated communities to urban apartments. The town has so many athletics facilities for its people that I lost count.”

Actual reporting, not just blow-harding

Please read Joe’s entire piece here. It’s nice to see real reporting on the opinion pages.

Now maybe Dan Morain can fly to Germany and give a firsthand report on how a government’s overcommitment to green energy has gone haywire.

OK, OK — I won’t get my hopes up.

Meanwhile, in Texas, they’re chortling — mildly, not meanly — at our expense. This is from a Dallas Morning News editorial:

“Any way you slice it, Toyota’s decision to consolidate operations in North Texas is a huge coup. …

“Plano Mayor Harry LaRosiliere attributes the behind-the-scenes legwork securing the deal to Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Texas House Speaker Joe Straus and the Dallas Regional Chamber, all of whom promoted North Texas’ economic strength, available land and lower cost of living. No doubt also playing significant roles were the closing power of $40 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund, other yet-to-be-specified incentives from Plano and the northern suburb’s strong school system.

“Some might not be comfortable with the idea of states wooing companies with wayward eyes from other states. But that is the way the game is played these days. States compete to attract and retain companies; those slow off the mark stand to lose major development opportunities.”

Toyota considered moving to Colorado

The DMN coverage also provided important context: Toyota didn’t just want out of California so it could be close to its manufacturing facilities in the South. This is one of the points brought up those who say this as no big deal. Toyota was also considering … Colorado! Not exactly home to a lot people who say “y’all.”

“Toyota wanted out of California for many reasons: high taxes, steep operations costs and unpredictable state politics. The automaker reportedly had kicked the tires on several locations in Texas as well as in Denver, Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C. And Toyota’s not the only one racing for the exits. In recent years, more than 250 companies have bolted from California, and relocation experts in that state say Texas was their No. 1 destination.

“’When you look at the whole package, it’s difficult to be a business here,’ said Torrance Mayor Frank Scotto, whose city is the big job loser in Toyota’s move to North Texas. …

“As companies leave California, many are finding new homes in Texas. Here are some of the latest announced moves:

” • Occidental Petroleum Corp. moving a portion of its operation from Los Angeles to Houston.

” • Raytheon Co. transferring its space and airborne systems unit to McKinney from Southern California.

” • Trend Micro Inc., a Tokyo-based security software company, moving its U.S. headquarters from the Silicon Valley to Irving.”

They won’t be the last. As I wrote in the U-T San Diego, it’s a metaphysical certainly that more big companies will leave a state that is indifferent to their presence for states that actually believe it is a good thing to help the private sector.

The plant now makes Teslas, a car that wouldn’t exist without massive government subsidies and credits. It’s the only car plant left in California. It’as basically a high-tech Trabi.

On the Toyota move, the L.A. Times reported about Occidental Petroleum and other companies fleeing California:

Like these other companies, Toyota could also save money in an environment of lower business taxes, real estate prices and cost of living.

Frank Scotto, Torrance’s mayor, said he had no warning of Toyota’s decision. He said he did know that the automaker planned a corporate announcement for Monday.

“When any major corporation is courted by another state, it’s very difficult to combat that,” Scotto said. “We don’t have the tools we need to keep major corporations here.”

The mayor said businesses bear higher costs in California for workers’ compensation and liability insurance, among other expenses.

And remember, almost all those several thousand Toyota jobs are middle-class jobs on which to raise a family. This is another indication that the middle class just isn’t welcome in California.

To change that, what’s needed, for starters, are: massive tax cuts, massive cuts in government waste, repealing AB 32 and the California Coastal Commission, strong pension reform and reducing the government workers’ unions’ lock-grip on government power.

That is, it’s not going to happen.