Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A small but vocal group of Californians want to secede from the Union, to avoid President-elect Trump’s climate policies.
Climate Change Secession
Some private citizen groups in California, distraught at the prospect of an America under President Donald Trump, are advocating that the state secede from the union.
Constitutional scholars (and most Californians) assure us the separation is not going to happen. But is there any instance in which California could go its own way? What if Trump withdraws the nation from the United Nations Climate Change Accord and rejects the validity of the global warming threat altogether?
Could and should that set the stage for environmentally precocious California to break ranks with the president and join the Climate Change Treaty as a separate entity? It is not all that outlandish, considering California would not be declaring itself a sovereign state. It would simply be using its existing progressive greenhouse gas emission reduction policies to directly participate in a worldwide crusade to slow the rate of human-induced global warming. That shouldn’t exclude it from being a member of the United States in good standing.
California’s unilateral action could arguably be justified as a legitimate manifestation of States’ Rights that would serve as an inspiration at home and abroad. We are talking about policies aimed at having 33 percent of the state’s electricity come from clean, renewable energy by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050.
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Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edward-flattau/climate-change-secession_b_13497438.html
Other voices urge that California remain part of the Union, so they can oppose President-elect Donald Trump’s policies from within.
California must lead, not secede
In the Trump era, California must do what it does best — lead
More than a month after the presidential election, many Californians are still stunned by the results. Admittedly #CalExit is a great rallying cry, but secession is not the answer. #CalLeads is a better solution.
Rather than secede, we can do what California does best — lead.
It’s possible the Trump administration will find bipartisan common ground on solutions to our nation’s problems, but it’s equally possible Washington will continue to merely seethe in its dysfunctional swamp. We shouldn’t wait to find out.
Obviously, California still has its share of challenges — from housing costs to education to water — but we’re working on them, not waiting for answers from Washington.
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Read more: http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/California-must-lead-not-secede-10804752.php
California’s ambitions to be a leading example of renewable energy success are a fantasy.
Last year (2015) California imported 99,210 GWh (33%) of their electricity from out of state, mostly from the South West, up from 25% in 2010. If California seceded they would have to negotiate some fossil fuel electricity import deals real quick, or the lights would go out.
But look on the bright side – if California secedes, Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown finally gets to be President of somewhere.
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Jefferson Davis and friends settled the issue of secession over 150 years ago. Democrats that time, too. I just hope the Reconstruction is handled better than after that Civil War.
Had Jefferson Davis not started the Civil War by ordering the firing on Fort Sumter there would be two countries now. The seceded states merely withdrew from the U.S. prior to that, removing their Congressional delegations, stopped sending taxes to Washington and stopped cooperating with the United States, in a sort non-violent civil disobedience movement. At that time the Federal government did not have the wherewithal to enforce federal laws that the States decided to ignore. Nearly all federal forts and Courthouses and other Federal property had been non-violently taken by the Confederacy. Only the firing on Fort Sumter gave Lincoln an overriding excuse to use power in response.
Agreed. Had PGT Beauregard just had his troops takes sandwiches out to Major Anderson’s troops, and thank them for guarding the Harbor, Lincoln would never have had a publicly acceptable reason for sending troops south.
The Japanese repeated history 80 years later. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto knew it, but was overruled.
Not quite. The “peaceful” secession of the South was a matter of President Buchanan taking the position that the South had no right to secede, but he had no power to stop them. Sumpter happened after Lincoln took office.
Lincoln suckered SC fire breathers into firing on Sumter. He wanted the war.
He knew his call for troops would lead VA, NC and TN to secede but felt he could hold onto MD, KY and MO.
He famously said that he hoped God was on his side but he absolutely needed Kentucky.
He was a scheming, statist tyrant but something of a sacred monster.
Difference are,
1) I am pretty sure lots of Americans would gladly push California away rather than be angry at them leaving.
2) Calexiters and friends obviously don’t know S* about how troublesome such move would be. There are so many hard questions to solve : federal debts, federal lands and military bases, new citizenship , new borders issues with new “aliens”, treaties to establish to deal with commerce, waters, etc.
Brexit is just childplay to Calexit on that matter
2 bis) on the other hand, Britain does have military, European Union doesn’t, while Cal national guard is no match for US army. Feds have “ultima ratio regis”, calexiters don’t: quite the opposite of Brexit. Then Calexit is just childplay
Where can I send a donation to the California secession cause? It would be money well spent if they would really do it. Mexico might take them but would very quickly want to give them back. The northern California folks need to step up their secessionist time table for leaving southern California behind and becoming a real US state, on the condition that they leave governor moon beam with the south.
We should repurpose discarded “Stronger Together” signs for a secession counter-protest.
California succeeding from the union – this is the very definition of “fake news”.
A friend of mine who has lived in California for decades (working in Hollywierd as he puts it) was of the conclusion that the continent is slanted a bit, and all the nuts rolls westward until the ocean stops them.
He’s not saying that all the people there are nuts, mind you. Just that most of the nuts tend to wind up there (I imagine that the Mississippi and Rockies act as a bit of a filter).
It’s quite simple, if a Trump Presidency is that big of a threat, then their position is clearly untenable.
Even if the Calexit referendum were to be successful, there is no way the Democrats in the rest of the country are going to allow California to secede. Without California it is hard to see how the Democrats win any future national elections without the 55 gimme Electoral College votes . Remove their Congressional delegation (House – 38 Democrats, 14 Republicans, 1 seat vacant, Senate – 2 Democrats) and the House might be permanently Republican.
I support the Calexit attempt, so long as it is done fairly and democratically, and allows individual California counties to decide to remain in the Union. i suspect a substantial part of California would vote to stay, and let the liberal rump “state” go on its own.
“Without California it is hard to see how the Democrats win any future national elections ”
Which is why I support CA Exiting Now.
And one reason CA has to pay all back Fed Taxes plus 50% surcharge. Don’t really want CA coming back.
“Californians want to secede from the Union”
If they want to leave, they can leave for Free.
If they want back in, it will cost them all back Federal Taxes with 50% surcharge.
Buh Bye CA!
Green California is giving up clean nuclear power by closing Diablo Canyon and will end up importing more power generated by “fosil” fuels. That make sense, only here in LALA Land.
I will enlist with the Union if they try to secede.
Encourage CA Exit.
If CA want’s any U.S. goods, supplies, or services – Charge substantial export Fee$.
A secession is a nice display of a bipartisanship – at lease, of a progressive variety. It would remove any divisions, leaving nothing to heal.
Lovely to once again see all of the comments from the outside about the state I and a lot of other people feel a prisoner of. Unless you live here I doubt you’d understand the ambivalence. In the end this is a media puffed non-issue, just hot air.
Anyway, I skimmed the comments and I was surprised to not see any about Gov Brown. There is an internal feeling (and I share this feeling) that the man is half off his rocker and getting worse.I listened to some of his commentary from the AGU and he is sounding pretty disconnected. Possibly he was just drunk. I don’t really follow Brown so I can’t compare to other recent public statements, but compared to say a year ago he sounded like he’s struggling to even talk in sentence fragments. His obsession with Climate and the Train is well known, and it might be all he can think about.
Look for moonbeam.
When you see Brown, you are seeing equal amounts of green and red.
I can start the Go Fund Me page, think they’ll take wooden nickels?
Since when has California paid any attention to Federal laws anyway? And exactly how would Washington act to prevent them from engaging in their favorite pastime : pretending to be saviors of the nation (and the world – think big, think California!) while importing murderers and welfare-cheating illegals from their Southern border? The major California export to the nation these days is Mexican murderers and thieves. A separate California would be a wonderful thing. Imagine the number of undesirables that would be eliminated from our country in one fell swoop. Push on, push on, California!! We’re rooting for your secessionist movement. No mass murdering Abe Lincolns in the White house to invade your state and murder half your people to restore “our glorious Union” . The ultimate safe space for Liberal kooks. Of course, you may have to slightly rewrite your fictitious American history texts so that secessionists are no longer characterized as traitors (Abe Lincoln’s big lie) .
California’s debt clock is ticking away.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-california-debt-clock.html
Great news. This kind of behavior is precisely what is needed to bend the curve of progressive losses steeper and purge the left wing stalwarts states of resistance. These holdout states humiliate themselves into the sea change already underway.
We don’t want the left to change what they are doing.
It’s all going swimmingly.
I am in favor of letting California secede. The rest of the Country could then extend the wall on the Mexican border to the California border. California could then be cut off from imports of fossil fuels, and of electricity. The US could then impose a 45% tariff on imports from California. And, lock out the culture destroying garbage imported from Hollywood. Within ten years, California would be just like Venezuela, except that it would have no fossil fuel industry to support the remnants of its economy. California would descend into gang warfare like Mexico.
They won’t be seceding. Their worsening rabid left will only embarrass the state into following the rest of the country. There are millions of “normal” Californians who take only take so much of the insanit. They’ll come along into the progress like everyone else.
Rejoice!
If they don’t want to secede, we should throw them out.
In fact, I think California would have a surplus of fossil energy. Lots of oil wells. And more, if things get tight and they wise up to the inanity of ecological restrictions.
“if … they wise up”
They would have to have open minds to wise up. But, they are all part of the leftist hive-mind and can no longer think.
California secession? What can I do to help expedite?
California receives about $55 billion per year from the Federal Government to support healthcare, education and other state programs which are not funded by the state. California’s share of the national debt is about $2 trillion. California has to import vast amounts of its energy including 1/3 of its electricity and a significant amount of its natural gas.
California is in no financial or energy position to leave the United States.
Additionally there is no provision in the Constitution for secession by states and a civil war was fought to establish that position.
The people trying to push for California secession are idiots.
We will send them on their merry way without asking for any money. Our economy will grow so much more quickly without their “environmentalism” that we will laugh all the way to the bank.
‘Additionally there is no provision in the Constitution for secession by states and a civil war was fought to establish that position.’
Then give West Virginia back to Virginia.
If they want it.
WV would not want back together with a state increasingly dominated by public employee unions opposed to mining coal. Also opposed to God and guns.
Oh, please, Please, PLEASE DO!!! And don’t let the door hit your butt on your way out, CA. We will miss you. NOT.
The last time anyone tried to secede from the U.S., it caused a civil war. And this is only one state.
It’s not the same thing. No one is telling California they can’t follow whatever climate nonsense they want to. The Southern states were being told they could not keep slaves. They wanted to secede in order to be able to continue with their ideals, not subjected to Northern aggression. No one is trying to outlaw following climate nonsense in any state. It’s not the same thing. Plus, many people seem fine with California leaving.
Abolitionists were few in the North. Southern planters feared loss of slaves, but the Republican platform was only to stop the expansion of slavery into the territories, not abolition.
And Northern Democrats favored slavery, since their immigrant voters didn’t want to compete with free blacks.
The weather must be REALLY nice in CA for so many people to continue to put up with the insanity.
California secede? Only west of San Andreas Fault, a Limerick.
Should California be divided into 2 states?
I have been thinking about the merit of dividing California into 2 states. It really makes sense on so many fronts.
The name of the states should be California and Pacifis – after Atlantis that sank into the ocean.
Pacifis should include all territory west of San Andreas Fault, and also including the whole southern portion of the San Francisco Bay up to San Pablo following the Hayward fault. The Northern portion of the bay will remain in California.
California already have inspection stations for agriculture goods and it would be relatively easy to set up more along the Fault lines. Then as the area west of the San Andreas fault physically secedes from the mainland it is logical to allow Pacifis to politically secede from the United States.
The Limerick:
Can part California secede?
Droughts, earthquakes all make it recede.
For west of the fault line
Decline is the byline.
From Bay to LA all agreed.
Over 3/4 of all people of California live west of the San Andreas Fault and nearly 70% of them voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. There is a movement to have California secede. That is not fair, the part east of the Fault line is really part of America, the whole Central Valley is really flyover Country, much like real America. The language may be Spanish in part, but that too is real America. https://lenbilen.com/2016/11/26/california-secede-only-west-of-san-andreas-fault-a-limerick/
I wondered too if part of California could secede. It would much more difficult for the part that seceded since they would basically be their own country, a very, very small country.
Where do I send my check to help them make their deram a reality?
Just a thought experiment if the entire left coast and Hawii left to form Ectopia then the USA would no longer be a Pacific power. So the cost of maintaining the Pacific force structure that preserves the peace and ensures safe trade would presumably fall to Ectopia.
Be careful what you wish for. When considering the cost of the Pacific forces, the left coast may well be the net beneficiary of federal spending.
the idiots here think the military is an unnecessary waste of resources and money, that would be better used elsewhere.
we’re a special kind of st00pid out here in #Failifornia.
I misread for “Ectoplasmia.” Please feel free to unwrap that one.
Perhaps they uphold “climate seance”?
I liked this opinion piece by Dan Walters, who actually writes very sensibly about California politics. He surely is reviled in Sacramento. My own opinion is that it breaks my heart to see possibly the finest piece of real estate in the world going down the tubes, taken over by people that don’t deserve it.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/dan-walters/article115722283.html