Wild thought—What if, instead of seceding, CA was expelled?
Bad idea, I know.
But to my mind there’s two reasons that people act this way:
1) They are weak-minded, and untouched by the consequences of the policies they espouse, or
2) They are effectively selfish, foreign agents bent on leeching from the American host. And, because of our prior welcoming attitudes, there are millions of them.
Weren’t both Cloward and Piven Californians?
This concurred with Madison in Federalist #43. He had argued that the Constitution was a compact (contract). Under contract law, a party may remove himself from a contract only if all other parties to the contract concur. The one exception is if an action is taken that voids the contract.
Madison made this argument when we had only 13 states. He argued that if even one state wished to leave, the Union would have to be dissolved to accomplish that, and it would require the unanimous consent of the other 12 parties.
Lincoln's position was more moderate. Because we had so many more states than in Madison's day, Lincoln argued that a constitutional amendment would be the proper tool for dissolving the Union and then re-forming it, minus the states that chose to leave. This would require the concurrence of three fourths of the states, not unanimous consent. Arguing that unilateral secession was unconstitutional and thus forbidden, he asked the southern states to rescind their declarations of secession, send their senators and representatives back to Congress, and negotiate their way out of the Union via an amicable divorce.
After Lincoln's assassination, passions in Congress got out of control. Ten southern states were rolled into five military districts and effectively expelled from the Union. This was a violation of every principle for which Lincoln had prosecuted the war.
The states were told that they could restore their statehood only by ratifying the 14th Amendment. There were several constitutional problems with this. Only states can ratify constitutional amendments, not territories, not military districts -- which do not exist within the Constitution -- not foreign countries, and not the UN. As military districts they could not ratify, but in the heat of the moment, Congress made this a condition of their re-entry.
In 1939, these issues could have been peripherally addressed by the Supreme Court in Coleman v. Miller, but the Court chose to keep this can of worms welded firmly shut. The Civil War had ended only 74 years earlier, and the wounds were still fresh. No one wanted to seriously challenge the validity of the 14th Amendment.
The military district option has never been litigated, which means that it is still technically an option, even if it would be unwise to invoke it.
The proper way for California to leave the Union would be for a constitutional amendment to be proposed by Congress (or a Convention of the States) and ratified by 38 states, either by state legislatures or by state ratifying conventions as chosen by Congress under the provisions of Article V of the Constitution. Disunion negotiations in Congress would include disposition of land acquired by the federal government from the state for military bases and payment of the state's share of the national debt.
There is another factor. If the Union is divisible, then California is divisible. The San Francisco Bay Area and the City of Southern California wish to be independent, but the rest of the state is not so inclined.
Not all that wild. I had exactly the same thought.
"Bad idea, I know."
Why??? Kick'em out of the USA and let'em petition to become part of Mexico.
Not a bad idea at all. Cut their water. Cut their electricity. No more military bases for them. We’d still have access to the west coast through Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Ban CA produce and encourage people to grow victory gardens to help offset the difference.
The next earthquake - opps, sorry, they’re on their own. They’d have to make their own currency, electrical grid, military, water, CaliforniaCare, raise taxes to pay for all their illegals, etc. If they want back into the Union, we take them back in 5 separate states so they can’t control elections.
Sounds like a win for the US.