California Counties Talk of Cutting Ties to State
By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: July 12, 2011
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Natives here have long called this area the Inland Empire, a grand title for a stretch of cities about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. Now, a few political leaders are hoping this empire will lead a movement to break off from the State of California.
Monica Almeida/The New York Times
Riverside County supervisors discussed a secession proposal by Jeff Stone, shown on screen, during a meeting on Tuesday.
Monica Almeida/The New York Times
Many of the counties under the secession proposal are more rural and include newly incorporated towns like Jurupa Valley.
Monica Almeida/The New York Times
Mr. Stone's proposal drew a skeptical response, though the board agreed to a conference in which it would be discussed.
Frustrated by a state government he calls “completely dysfunctional” and “totally unresponsive,” a conservative Republican county supervisor is pushing a proposal for roughly a dozen counties in the eastern and southern parts of the nation’s third-largest state — conspicuously not including the heavily Democratic city of Los Angeles — to form a new state to be called South California.
“We have businesses leaving all the time, and we’re just driving down a cliff to become a third-world economy,” said the supervisor, Jeff Stone, who once ran for the Legislature. “Anyone you ask has a horror story. At some point we have to decide enough is enough and deal with it in a radically new way.”
He added: “I am tired of California being the laughingstock of late-night jokes. We must change course immediately or create a new state.”
Mr. Stone’s list of complaints is long — too much money spent on state prisons, too much power for public unions, too many regulations and not enough of a crackdown on illegal immigration. It seems clear that he has struck a nerve in some quarters; he said that his office has been inundated with thousands of e-mails, letters and phone calls supporting his call for secession.
“I’m 59 and have lived here all my life,” one man from Anaheim wrote. “I’m about to leave the state, but if we could break from the liberal counties I’d stay. God bless you and let me know if I can help.”
While several other county supervisors initially dismissed the notion of seceding, on Tuesday the board unanimously approved Mr. Stone’s proposal to plan a conference for California municipal leaders to discuss ways to fix state government or consider secession — although they said they would make sure that no county money or personnel were used to plan such an event.
In many respects, the rest of the state can feel worlds apart from the scenes of sandy beaches and lush wine groves that California is known for. And while the rest of the country thinks about the northern-southern divide of the state, for years the largest differences have been between the coastal and inland areas.
Outside the biggest cities, the landscape is dotted with orange groves instead of palm trees and deserts instead of coastlines, an environment that is generally more rural than urban. The population tends to be poorer and more socially and politically conservative — Republicans outnumber Democrats in all but three of the counties in Mr. Stone’s proposed new state, which includes San Diego.
Calling for secession in difficult economic times is not a new idea — more than 200 such proposals to break up California have been floated since the state was formed in 1850. In 1992, several northern counties held an advisory vote on secession, but it ultimately went nowhere.
The closest any campaign came to success was in 1941, when several counties in Northern California and southern Oregon campaigned to form the state of Jefferson. At the time, the counties said they did not have enough roads and created a “Proclamation of Independence” for the 49th state — Alaska and Hawaii had not yet joined the union.
But just as the movement was gaining traction, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and residents put aside their dreams for a new state to work on the war effort.
Calls to break from the rest the state are not unique to California. Parts of Texas, Florida and Idaho have all tried to divide from their home state in the last several decades. Although the details differ, the story line is basically the same — one part of the state believes it is getting short shrift from the capital.
“The politics of victimhood are very powerful,” said Shaun Bowler, a political science professor at the University of California, Riverside. Mr. Stone’s effort taps into an angry undercurrent among many conservatives in the eastern part of the state. “People have been mad for a long time. They seem to have a sense that if they keep shouting louder that they are right that they will convince the rest of the state that they are right.”
Under Mr. Stone’s proposal the state would have only a part-time Legislature, with lawmakers earning $600 a month. And there would be no term limits. One crucial element of California’s budget structure (and an article of faith among Republicans) would remain: a strict limit on property taxes.
Mr. Stone said he was particularly angered when the state’s budget diverted roughly $14 million from several newly incorporated cities in Riverside County. Jurupa Valley, for example, lost $6.4 million from its anticipated budget just a day before it was officially incorporated.
During the hourlong discussion of the proposal on Tuesday, the debate brought into clear focus the divide between Republicans and Democrats. Several speakers said they were angered by comments from Gov. Jerry Brown’s spokesman, who suggested that anyone who wanted to live with “very conservative right-wing laws” could simply move to neighboring Arizona.
(The spokesman, Gil Duran, did not back down Tuesday, saying that the idea of secession was a “pure joke that doesn’t merit serious attention.” He pointed out that the area Mr. Stone wants to peel off collects more money from the state than it generates. He added, “It’s an escapist fantasy of someone more interested in a political stunt than focusing on his job.”)
Bob Buster, the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, initially called Mr. Stone’s idea a “crazy distraction.” But he acknowledged that there was much to be unhappy about.
“There is a chronic unhappiness we have with the state that we cannot shake,” said Mr. Buster, who is not a registered member of either party. “We’re already balkanized in this state. The problem is governance itself, but we need to work to fix the problems, not spend time talking about just taking our marbles and leaving.”
“We have businesses leaving all the time, and we’re just driving down a cliff to become a third-world economy,” said the supervisor, Jeff Stone, who once ran for the Legislature. “Anyone you ask has a horror story. At some point we have to decide enough is enough and deal with it in a radically new way.”
He added: “I am tired of California being the laughingstock of late-night jokes. We must change course immediately or create a new state.”
Mr. Stone’s list of complaints is long — too much money spent on state prisons, too much power for public unions, too many regulations and not enough of a crackdown on illegal immigration. It seems clear that he has struck a nerve in some quarters; he said that his office has been inundated with thousands of e-mails, letters and phone calls supporting his call for secession.
“I’m 59 and have lived here all my life,” one man from Anaheim wrote. “I’m about to leave the state, but if we could break from the liberal counties I’d stay. God bless you and let me know if I can help.”
While several other county supervisors initially dismissed the notion of seceding, on Tuesday the board unanimously approved Mr. Stone’s proposal to plan a conference for California municipal leaders to discuss ways to fix state government or consider secession — although they said they would make sure that no county money or personnel were used to plan such an event.
In many respects, the rest of the state can feel worlds apart from the scenes of sandy beaches and lush wine groves that California is known for. And while the rest of the country thinks about the northern-southern divide of the state, for years the largest differences have been between the coastal and inland areas.
Outside the biggest cities, the landscape is dotted with orange groves instead of palm trees and deserts instead of coastlines, an environment that is generally more rural than urban. The population tends to be poorer and more socially and politically conservative — Republicans outnumber Democrats in all but three of the counties in Mr. Stone’s proposed new state, which includes San Diego.
Calling for secession in difficult economic times is not a new idea — more than 200 such proposals to break up California have been floated since the state was formed in 1850. In 1992, several northern counties held an advisory vote on secession, but it ultimately went nowhere.
The closest any campaign came to success was in 1941, when several counties in Northern California and southern Oregon campaigned to form the state of Jefferson. At the time, the counties said they did not have enough roads and created a “Proclamation of Independence” for the 49th state — Alaska and Hawaii had not yet joined the union.
But just as the movement was gaining traction, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and residents put aside their dreams for a new state to work on the war effort.
Calls to break from the rest the state are not unique to California. Parts of Texas, Florida and Idaho have all tried to divide from their home state in the last several decades. Although the details differ, the story line is basically the same — one part of the state believes it is getting short shrift from the capital.
“The politics of victimhood are very powerful,” said Shaun Bowler, a political science professor at the University of California, Riverside. Mr. Stone’s effort taps into an angry undercurrent among many conservatives in the eastern part of the state. “People have been mad for a long time. They seem to have a sense that if they keep shouting louder that they are right that they will convince the rest of the state that they are right.”
Under Mr. Stone’s proposal the state would have only a part-time Legislature, with lawmakers earning $600 a month. And there would be no term limits. One crucial element of California’s budget structure (and an article of faith among Republicans) would remain: a strict limit on property taxes.
Mr. Stone said he was particularly angered when the state’s budget diverted roughly $14 million from several newly incorporated cities in Riverside County. Jurupa Valley, for example, lost $6.4 million from its anticipated budget just a day before it was officially incorporated.
During the hourlong discussion of the proposal on Tuesday, the debate brought into clear focus the divide between Republicans and Democrats. Several speakers said they were angered by comments from Gov. Jerry Brown’s spokesman, who suggested that anyone who wanted to live with “very conservative right-wing laws” could simply move to neighboring Arizona.
(The spokesman, Gil Duran, did not back down Tuesday, saying that the idea of secession was a “pure joke that doesn’t merit serious attention.” He pointed out that the area Mr. Stone wants to peel off collects more money from the state than it generates. He added, “It’s an escapist fantasy of someone more interested in a political stunt than focusing on his job.”)
Bob Buster, the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, initially called Mr. Stone’s idea a “crazy distraction.” But he acknowledged that there was much to be unhappy about.
“There is a chronic unhappiness we have with the state that we cannot shake,” said Mr. Buster, who is not a registered member of either party. “We’re already balkanized in this state. The problem is governance itself, but we need to work to fix the problems, not spend time talking about just taking our marbles and leaving.”
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