California is thinking about leaving us. The “Calexit” movement got underway less than a week after the inauguration of President Trump, when a group called Yes California started gathering signatures for a petition to add a referendum to the state’s ballots in 2019. If the group gets enough valid signatures, Californians will vote on whether to leave the union in two years.
The gambit was probably inevitable in a state with a history of both a) the naive belief that you can break up governing into a series of referendums put directly to the voters and b) 20 years of legalized weed.
A poll last week showed only 18 percent of Californians support secession, but, hey, that’s higher than Donald Trump was polling in the Republican primary in July 2015. California has always been a fantasy land, an escape, a sun-dappled place of myth makers and dream weavers. The movie business actually celebrates its own detachment from reality in films like this year’s big Oscar hopeful “La La Land.”
Still, it appears that the Bills and Teds out there in Tinseltown and Berserkely who thought Calexit would be an excellent adventure didn’t quite think it through.
In order to even make it onto the ballot, Calexit would need to gather 585,000 valid signatures in the next six months, a process that could cost millions. (So far the campaign has raised zilch.) In order to pass, the secession proposal would require half of all registered voters to show up at the polls, and for 55 percent of them to vote yes on making America a 49-state country.
If anyone should love an actual California secession, it’s Republicans. Take away California, and Trump would have won the popular vote by over a million votes instead of losing by nearly three million. Take away California, and the GOP increases its electoral college margin by 55 votes, its Senate margin by two seats and its House margin by 24 seats.
Minus California, the USA essentially becomes Greater Texas.
Calling California’s bluff is a tempting prospect. Forget building a wall on the Southern border; we could do a lot more good putting one on the Western edge of Nevada. The next time we read about Berkeley rioters burning down property to stop an invited speaker from sharing his thoughts, we could just shake our heads and think, “Nutty foreigners, they just don’t share our American values.”
California is already determined to make itself the HQ of the Trumpsistance and possibly the first sanctuary state, opposing enforcement of federal immigration law. To fight Trump’s immigration policy, leading political figures such as ex-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown have started muttering darkly about launching a revenue war with the president by failing to pass along the tax receipts the state owes the feds.
That idea is nuttier than John Travolta’s “Battlefield Earth.” It would mean doubling down on illegality — effectively making California an outlaw state. The president is already hinting that he’d like to cut off federal funds to UC Berkeley for its shameful rioting Wednesday night. To do so, Trump would need to go through Congress, but does California really want to find out if our new Commander in Chief has a vindictive streak?
California, you’re part of our big, unruly American family, so settle in and get used to it.
Trump is probably thinking, in the words of one notable Californian, “Go ahead. Make my day.”
We always assumed it would be an earthquake that would snap the Golden State off from the mainland, but if California wants to form its own republic under President George Clooney and Vice President Barbra Streisand, my advice is not “Send in the troops” but “Send a case of champagne.” It’ll go out in a sealed train containing Lena Dunham, Rosie O’Donnell and Alec Baldwin that is under strict orders not to allow anyone to exit until it gets to Sacramento.
As sweet as that is to contemplate, though, Calexit isn’t going any farther than Texit did after Rick Perry made a joking reference to Texas secession in 2009. You see, back East we came up with this thing called “the Constitution.” Ever since 1868, the Supreme Court has held that a constitutional amendment would be required to allow any state to secede. And that looks like a pretty gnarly order to fill: two-thirds of Congress, plus three-quarters of the states, would have to agree.
In short, then, California, you’re part of our big, unruly American family, so settle in and get used to it. Let me put it in familiar terms for you: When it comes to the United States of America, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
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