\n<\/p>\n
In 2013, venture capitalist<\/span> Tim Draper launched a \u201cSix Californias<\/a>\u201d ballot initiative. The upshot was that with some 40 million people, more than the population of the 20 smallest states combined, California was too big, too diverse, to be \u201cefficiently\u201d governed. So why not, Draper argued, break it up into six new \u201cstartups,\u201d a.k.a. states? Instead of two senators, we erstwhile \u201cCalifornians\u201d would get 12.<\/p>\n Draper\u2019s scheme<\/a> was part of a long tradition\u2014since California was admitted to the Union as part of the Compromise of 1850, there have been more than 220 proposals for it to divide or secede\u2014but derided as a Silicon Valley ploy to create a libertarian deregulation zone. (Tellingly, the Bay Area state was to be named \u201cSilicon Valley.\u201d) And aside from the feasibility of making it happen, state and federal constitution-wise, people worried that it would cleave four rich populous states from two poorer rural states (fair) and weaken Democrats\u2019 voting share in the Senate (in retrospect, nah). Draper\u2019s measure gleaned valid signatures from some 753,000 people\u2014more, it must be said, than the populations of America\u2019s three smallest states\u2014but in California, that wasn\u2019t enough to get on the ballot.<\/p>\n After the 2016 election, which put the anti-majoritarian provisions of the US Constitution very much front of mind, Draper came back with a simpler proposal\u2014three Californias, or Cal 3<\/a>. This initiative got enough signatures to head to voters, but the day before the 2018 ballots were to be printed, the state Supreme Court blocked the measure\u2014what about things like existing water treaties, the justices worried\u2014and Draper eventually gave up.<\/p>\n While his motives were murky, Draper tapped into something now excruciatingly felt. The assignment of two senators per state, no matter its population, was always a deeply flawed (and deeply racist) proposition. But the unfairness has only gotten more acute. As my colleague Ari Berman has noted<\/a>: \u201cIn 1790, the country\u2019s most populous state, Virginia, had 12 times as many people as its least populous, Delaware. Today, California has 67 times the population of Wyoming. Fifteen small states with 41 million people combined now routinely elect 30\u00a0GOP senators; California, with 39 million residents, is represented by only two Democrats.\u201d The Golden State is the fourth-largest economy<\/a> in the world but doesn\u2019t have political clout proportional to its population, let alone to our status as a global cultural, technological, and agricultural juggernaut.<\/p>\n In case it\u2019s not obvious why I\u2019m taking a leisurely drive down a byroad of California electoral history, let\u2019s review some of the abuses and usurpations<\/a> that President Donald Trump has visited upon us.<\/p>\n California, and the country, cannot await the outcome of the midterms to repel Trump\u2019s siege on democracy. More drastic action is required.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The most vicious of those abuses has been over immigration. On June 6, at the urging of his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, ICE escalated raids<\/a> in California, hitting farms, factories, construction sites, and schools, separating families and detaining undocumented people, legal residents, and even citizens. Federal agents arrested and hospitalized David Huerta, the head of one of the state\u2019s most powerful unions. When protests erupted, Trump jumped at the chance to federalize the National Guard against Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s wishes\u2014something that hasn\u2019t been done since LBJ acted to protect civil rights protesters from segregationists<\/a>. Border czar Tom Homan threatened to arrest Newsom, which Trump agreed was a \u201cgreat<\/a>\u201d idea. When a reporter asked for what crime, Trump responded that his \u201cprimary crime is running for governor<\/a>\u201d and called protesters \u201cinsurrectionists.\u201d Speaker of the House Mike Johnson chimed in that Newsom should be \u201ctarred and feathered<\/a>.\u201d Then Trump sent Marines into LA. When California Sen. Alex Padilla\u2014who was voted for by more Americans than 18 GOP senators combined<\/em>\u2014tried to ask Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem questions at a press conference, federal officials knocked him down and cuffed him<\/a>. One-quarter of California\u2019s population are immigrants, and the continual attack on them\u2014and anyone who is brown\u2014is a moral injury that plays out in our streets and our feeds day after day after day.<\/p>\n But the direct assaults on California are by no means limited to raids and those protesting raids. Trump has dragged his feet<\/a> about providing federal aid to address the devastation of LA\u2019s wildfires, saying he\u2019d release it only if we pass a voter-ID law<\/a>; taken our own National Guard off fire lines<\/a>; and made bizarre claims about sending us water for the fires from the Pacific Northwest. He\u2019s canceled our car efficiency and emissions rules<\/a>, attacked our renewable energy plan, and zeroed out federal money for rooftop solar<\/a> and high-speed rail<\/a>. He\u2019s revoked federal grants to UCLA over spurious charges of antisemitism, then gave the school a list of demands, including a $1 billion<\/em> settlement and the end of \u00adgender-affirming care in its hospitals.<\/p>\n Amid all of that came Trump\u2019s demand that Texas engage in midcycle redistricting to give the GOP five extra congressional seats that he says it\u2019s \u201centitled to<\/a>.\u201d Newsom, both legitimately enraged and sensing an opportunity to help his presidential ambitions, has rallied California Democrats to mount a ballot initiative to temporarily set aside its nonpartisan redistricting commission and draw congressional maps to counterbalance Texas\u2019 scheme.<\/p>\n We will vote on that initiative<\/a> in November, and my bet is it will pass. But California, and the country, cannot await the outcome of the midterms to repel Trump\u2019s siege on democracy. More drastic action is required.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, especially as Trump berates generals and admirals on \u201cthe enemy within<\/a>\u201d and suggests they use US cities as \u201ctraining grounds<\/a>,\u201d it\u2019s all too easy to imagine a world where the commanders of California\u2019s military bases are compelled to choose sides. (If you think such scenarios are out of the realm of possibility, ask yourself why he and Pushup Pete Hegseth have been purging the brass<\/a>.) Our boundaries of oceans and mountains and deserts, our copious natural resources, and our technological prowess make a return to an independent California Republic more feasible than it might be for other states. But in advance, and hopefully in lieu, of that, it\u2019s time to start applying our economic muscle.<\/p>\n When Trump first said<\/span> he was gutting federal funding to California\u2019s public universities, a system that is the envy of the world, Newsom responded<\/a>: \u201cCalifornians pay the bills for the federal government. We pay over $80 BILLION more in taxes than we get back. Maybe it\u2019s time to cut that off, @realDonaldTrump.\u201d<\/p>\n Remember when Mitt Romney called 47 percent<\/a> of Americans \u201ctakers,\u201d layabouts who fed off the \u201cmakers\u201d that he claimed to represent? (We do, since Mother Jones<\/em>\u2019 own David Corn broke that story<\/a>, arguably changing the course<\/a> of the 2012 election.) This persistent GOP talking point is especially odd when you consider the residents of 19 mostly blue states pay more to the US Treasury than they get in federal benefits; to Newsom\u2019s point, none pays more than California. (This includes our undocumented residents, who pay billions in federal taxes and receive no federal benefits.) We\u2019re mostly happy to do it because we believe in things like Social Security, public education, pandemic preparedness, and research institutions. But why should we sit by while you take our money, defund our priorities, and shit on our values?<\/p>\n California can\u2019t claim no<\/em> power in Congress, like DC\u2014home to 700,000 people, more than either Vermont or Wyoming<\/a>\u2014can. But it\u2019s time to think outside of the electoral box and start flexing our considerable leverage. We are the nation\u2019s largest agricultural state\u2014growing more than a third of the country\u2019s vegetables and \u00adthree-quarters of its fruits\u2014and the fifth-largest food producer in the world<\/a>. We produce the most milk and the most wine, copious amounts of rice and cattle, and, crucially, 90 percent of US avocados<\/a>. Other states may be poster children for farms, but we\u2019re No. 1. Hollywood is a $47.2 billion industry exerting, for better or worse, immeasurable global cultural power. The $623 billion tech sector <\/a>is even mightier. Were California to secede, almost 15 percent of America\u2019s GDP would go with it, and the US could slip behind China as the world\u2019s biggest economy.<\/p>\n Short of actual secession, what could California do? It could learn from the Jimmy Kimmel showdown and lead a financial \u201ccountervalue\u201d rebellion, using \u201cthe full weight of blue states\u2019 market power, cultural influence and legal authority to raise the stakes of Republican red-state aggression,\u201d Democratic strategists Arkadi Gerney and\u00a0Sarah Knight wrote in the Washington Post<\/em><\/a>, by imposing \u201cregulatory and economic costs that bite hard enough to make the constituents of even the most insulated legislator feel the pain.\u201d We could start by disinvesting our pension funds from red-state companies like AT&T, American Airlines, ExxonMobil, and Tesla. \u201cThe 15 blue trifectas (states where Democrats control the governor\u2019s mansion and both houses of the state legislature), with their larger state budgets and more generous pensions, have state investments that total almost 75 percent more than the 23 red trifectas,\u201d they note<\/a>.<\/p>\n If that seems a reach, consider that Texas effectively got BlackRock to drop its \u201cwoke\u201d investment and governance policies by blackballing it. Blue states could lure away techies, doctors, nurses, and electricians with relocation bonuses. We could institute tax and other incentives to pull new factories and data centers away from red states. We could selectively terminate professional licensing reciprocity. We could ease commerce between friendly states and make it difficult for unfriendly ones.<\/p>\n Economic retribution is just part of a broader constellation of tools that law professors Jessica Bulman-Pozen (Columbia) and Heather K. Gerken (Yale) call \u201cuncooperative federalism<\/a>\u201d and others call \u201csoft secession<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s not, writes<\/a> Substacker Chris Armitage, \u201cthe violent rupture of 1861, but something else entirely. Blue states building parallel systems, withholding cooperation, and creating facts on the ground that render federal authority meaningless within their borders.\u201d Some of this is already underway. Led by California\u2019s Rob Bonta, the attorneys general of blue states have been having almost daily Zoom calls to plot<\/a> strategy and file briefs and suits. Democratic governors have devoted tens of millions to hire lawyers for those fights and banded together to oppose Trump\u2019s threats to send troops to their states. In early September, California, Oregon, and Washington created the West Coast Health Alliance<\/a> to formulate their own vaccine standards and distribute shots, no matter what lunacy Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unleashes. Hawaii signed on a day later. Other blue states are honing similar coalitions.<\/p>\n\n