The New USA? Secession Movement Gains Steam

cbn.com ^ | March 4, 2014 | David Brody

[ilovesarah2012]

GREELEY, Colo. -- If you mention the word "secession" most people think of the South during the Civil War. But today, a new movement is gaining steam because of frustration over a growing, out-of-control federal government.

A number of conservative, rural Americans are taking about seceding and creating their own states, meaning a new map of the United States of America could include the following:

A 51st state called Jefferson, made up of Northern California and Southern Oregon A new state called Western Maryland A new state called North Colorado These are real movements gaining traction with voters across the country. Jeffrey Hare runs the 51st State Initiative in Colorado, an effort to fight an out-of-control legislature trying to ram big government policies down the throats of voters.

"We're at this point of irreconcilable differences," Hare told CBN News.

[TChad]

Interesting point. I’ll have to think about that. I suspect that you are right.

[bert]

I can’t really disagree. There are some areas in that mass that seem to me to be salvageable. But,it might be the best course to do as you say.

[GOPsterinMA]

CF and I discussed this “new state” idea years ago.

There would need to be a new state on the West Coast - otherwise there’s a huge problem.

#kitteneatsflan

[NFHale]

I’m a firm believer in making those OTHER people leave.

They can go anywhere and find their “Utopia” - I hear North Korea is nice, or how about a nice Islamic Theocracy somewhere? Put them Rainbow Flags way, way up high, and see how tolerant Achmed is!

Nah. I’ll stay. THEY can leave. We built it, we’ll keep it.

[Alas Babylon!]

Born on a mountain top in Tennessee
Greenest state in the land of the free
Raised in the woods so’s he knew every tree
Kilt him a bar when he was only three
Davy Davy Crockett king of the wild frontier

[GOPsterinMA]

This will NEVER happen, but I’d LOVE to see a POTUS send the military into a “sanctuary city” and put it under martial law. Then give the illegals 12 hours to vacate.

Let’s see what the rainbow flag waving, ACLU-types do then.

Oh right - they’d try to go judge shopping and get an injunction.

Then let the Einsatzgruppen begin.

Enough of this sh*t.

[MrB]

It’s not secession from the fedgov... it’s sections of states seceding and reforming new states.

I think it’s ridiculous. The EXISTING states just need to exert their 10th amendment sovereignty, tell the fedgov to pound sand, and then let people vote with their feet.

[BillyBoy]

SECEDE and I love the idea of secession so much, after we succeed in secession, we're going to secede from each other. I can't share the Confederate States of America with some foreigner from big ol' Texas bullying us and telling the sovereign state of GEORGIA what to do! I ain't never lived there!

In fact, I've already drawn up plans to have my county secede from the Republic of Confederate Georgia (not to be confused with the other Republic of Georgia in eastern europe). That should work for a while, but eventually my hometown will have to secede from my county cuz I don't want any of them city slickers from Mason interfering with our God given rights in McDonough.

Hell, I think that damnyankee Peter Griffith from Family Guy is the ONLY one who got in right. I'm gonna form The God Fearin' Constitution Republic of Rayville, which will consist solely of my own 3-bedroom property!

[AuH2ORepublican]

In that Family Guy episode, Peter settled on the name “Petoria” for his “country” because the name “Peterland” already was taken by a gay strip club in Providence.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Born David Stern Crockett, August 17, 1786, Greene County, Tennessee (then in the State of Franklin)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett

[AuH2ORepublican]

CA should be split into 5 states (2 über Democrat, 3 slightly GOP-leaning), TX into 4 states (all 4 GOP) and FL into 3 states (1 RAT in South FL, 1 GOP in Central FL (south of Orange County), and 1 GOP to the north).

A new State of Chicagaukee should be formed from the counties bordering Lake Michigan from Milwaukee County, WI to Lake County, IL (which would include Chicago, Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Gary, etc.), but allowing GOP areas to secede if it won’t affect the new state’s contiguity, leaving the remaining parts of WI, IL and IN comfortably Republican. The counties from Detroit/Ann Arbor to Cleveland to Erie, PA to Buffalo should be the State of Erie. A state of Philadelphia should be formed by Philly, Dem suburbs in PA, Wilmongton, DE, and Camden County, NJ. NYC plus Newark, Jersey City, etc. should be a state. Rinse and repeat. After excising all those RAT areas, most of those Obama states would become GOP states.

[longtermmemmory]

you don’t need to split states just go to one county one vote in awarding statewide electoral votes.

Thus in presidential elections in FL the candidate who wins the most of the 67 counties would will all of fl’s electors.

[AuH2ORepublican]

Umm, ever heard of Baker v. Carr? Besides, the RATs would control the legislature and would just draw 50 counties in Chicago.

[Alas Babylon!]

Yeah but Franklin doesn’t rhyme with free, tree and three now does it?

[GOPsterinMA]

Looks logical to me.

I know this was something else that was discussed years back: Can a state be expelled from the USA? Is there a mechanism to do so?

[AuH2ORepublican]

Short answer: no, there is nothing in the Constitution that permits Congress or the other states to kick out a state without such state’s consent (heck, one can’t even approve a constitutional amendment getting rid of a state, since one would be reducing such state’s equal representation in the Senate without its consent). So we need to convince Hawaii, Vermont, etc. that they should become independent.

[Impy]

Theoretically, could the entrenched clause in Article 5 be repealed itself?

Larry “Short Bus” Sabato seemed to think so, as he proposed giving the largest few states an extra Senator.

[AuH2ORepublican]

“Repealing” that part of Article V would be the equivalent of getting rid of the Constitution altogether. Sure, the People could gather together and adopt a new constitution with a new form of government, but that’s basically a new American Revolution. Under the constitutional framework that we’ve had for 225 years, what Sabato implies is a non-starter.

BTW, Article V does not prevent the number of senators per state to be increased, just that no amendment may deny a state equal representation in the senate without its consent. I think that we should amend the Constitution to increase the number of senators to 3 per state, and to set the number of Representatives at 3 times the total number of senators. That would allow the citizens of each state to elect a senator at every biennial election. It also would result in a ratio of representatives-to-senators of 3:1, which is much closer to the 2.5:1 ratio for the First Congress than the 4.35:1 ratio that we’ve had for the past 50+ years.

This ratio matters because a higher ratio benefits larger states in the Electoral College, thus watering down the federalist principles behind the Electoral College. A small state (population-wise) like SD currently has 3 electoral votes out of the 538 total (0.5576%), but if the Senate had 150 members and the House had 450 SD would have 4 EVs out of 604 (DC would go up to 4 EVs as per the 23rd Amendment, although you already know what I would do with DC), which is 0.6622% of the total. This increase seems small, but such amendment would serve as a prophylactic measure against the possibility of Congress increasing House membership to, say, 1,000 members, which would markedly reduce the importance of small states in the Electoral College.

Another benefit of linking the number of representatives to senators is that current states no longer would have a selfish reason to deny a new state being admitted, as currently is the case today where the House by law is set at 435 members even if new states come in (House membership is increased temporarily when new states are admitted, but goes back down to 435 after the following Census). When Congress was debating a political-status referendum for Puerto Rico in 1998, entire House delegations (including IL and TN IIRC) voted against the bill because the Congressional Research Service pointed out that, if PR became a state, such states would lose a representative after the next Census. Admission of a new state should be made on the merits, not based on how many representatives current states would have. With the rep-to-senator ratio set at 3:1, only if a proposed new state would be entitled to more than 9 representatives would its admission harm existing state delegations, and it’s unlikely that new states would be considered that would exceed this number of representatives by too much (although if California was split 5 ways and L.A. County was its own state it would have like 13 or 14 representatives; I would hope that Republican or marginal areas in L.A. County would secede prior to CA splitting, which would reduce the size of L.A. County so that it would have closer to 10 representatives).

So that’s what I would do with Senate membership. Larry Sabato can put that in his toupee and smoke it.

[GOPsterinMA]

Thank you for the information Goldwater.

[Impy]

I think that we should amend the Constitution to increase the number of senators to 3 per state

I've long thought that is a good idea, if only because that would be nice and even (or odd if we added another state, even better). Also that the House could stand to be a little bigger. Most freepers balk at the idea because if Congress=bad then bigger Congress=worse, a simplistic way of looking at it.