A group called "New California" has taken its first step towards carving the Golden State in two - issuing a "declaration of independence" which would incorporate most of the state's rural counties - while coastal counties from the northern San Francisco Bay Area to the southern tip of Los Angeles would remain part of the existing state.
Quoted by CBS, founder Paul Preston said "Well, it's been ungovernable for a long time. High taxes, education, you name it, and we're rated around 48th or 50th from a business climate and standpoint in California."
"There's something wrong when you have a rural county such as this one, and you go down to Orange County which is mostly urban, and it has the same set of problems, and it happens because of how the state is being governed and taxed," Preston said.
The group is serious about this effort - printing pamphlets (here and here and here) citing authority granted in the U.S. Constitution "to provide a republican form of government as guaranteed by Article IV, Section 4," which co-founder Robert Paul Preston says has not been the case in California for a long time. “There’s something wrong when you have a rural county such as this one, and you go down to Orange County which is mostly urban, and it has the same set of problems, and it happens because of how the state is being governed and taxed,” Preston said.
With faith, diligence, and our sacred honor, we do hereby declare our Unity with Natural Law and the United States of America’s Constitution. We stand firm in our pledge to maintain and support the freedoms of the people of our Nation and New California at all times, at home and abroad. With God as our witness, honoring the foundational principles, we take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, to stand together as free citizens of New California, to be a sovereign state of that nation which we hold dear, the United States of America.
As we seek to remain a member of our Union, in order to form a more perfect Union we resolve to create the Free, Sovereign and Independent State of New California due to the past and current government of California having failed in their oath of office, obligations, and responsibilities as representatives of “We the People” to provide a republican form of government as guaranteed by Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution.
Declaration of Independence Intention to form the State of New California
January 15, 2018
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, Property and the pursuit of happiness.
To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them they should declare the causes which cause them to separate.
Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such design that is most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown mankind is more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
However when a long train of abuses and acts to seize and hold the people’s power without legal authority and pursuing invariably the same
Object that clearly demonstrates a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The history of the present Governor and Government of California is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of a Tyranny over the Counties of New California and the State of California.
Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to seek a constitutional remedy to the abuse of powers. We the people of the Counties of New California solemnly publish and declare these counties are, and of Right ought to be, a free and Independent State, that we strive to be free from the State of California, and that as a Free and Independent State, have full power to establish and maintain law and order, to promote general prosperity, and to do all other acts and things, which an Independent New California State may rightfully do.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the Counties of New California, appeal to the California Legislature and the Federal Congress to pass resolutions to create the State of New California.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.