By Sean Longoria Talk of whether California should split in two re-emerged in the local and national arenas last week after Siskiyou County voted to support seceding from the state. The county, which has long wrestled with the state and federal government over regulations its leaders deem inappropriate for the sparsely populated area, is just the first of what supporters of the split hope is a group of North State counties seeking to break off from California in search of a more-representative government. “The main point is we don’t think that Sacramento listens to us and it seems like every bill is taking a little bit more from the North State, whether it’s land rights or water, there’s always something,” said Tom Mohler, a Tehama County resident organizing a movement similar to that seen in Siskiyou County. But a new state formed from rural Northern California counties would face challenges — the state would be among the least populated in the country and on average would be poorer and less educated than California and the nation as a whole. With a limited tax base, the new state would also be restricted in what services it could provide without subsidization from Southern California tax dollars. And political science experts doubt the proposal will succeed, noting it’s the latest of more than 200 such efforts since California became a state. “What these are, are protests, they’re political protests and they afford us ways of thinking about California,” said Kevin Starr, history professor at the University of Southern California and author of a multi-volume history of the state. “These proposals, they come and they go.” WHY SPLIT? Proponents of separating the state say the movement is about representation — the more urbanized and populated southern half of the state controls California politics through its representatives. And those areas — which include San Francisco, Los Angeles and other large coastal cities — couldn’t be more different than the rugged and sparsely populated frontier of Siskiyou County. “This state is so large and so diverse that they have problems in urban centers that we can’t understand” and vice-versa, said Mark Baird, a Scott Valley rancher who led the charge for Siskiyou County supervisors to support withdrawing from California. Baird isn’t alone in that view as more than 100 people packed the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors chambers Tuesday to support the resolution. Scott Murphy, a rancher involved in water issues, recalled a recent conversation with officials at the state Department of Water Resources that illustrated the disconnect between agencies and the North State. “It was quite apparent that the people in Sacramento do not know what’s going on up here,” he said. Baird and those backing the split — mostly conservatives with tea party ties, though the movement is looking for support across the political spectrum — have their sights on Del Norte, Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, Sierra, Shasta, Tehama, Butte, Sutter and possibly even Glenn and Humboldt counties. The area is a sizeable chunk of the long-proposed state of Jefferson, which includes the North State and southern Oregon. The effort has already found support from Assemblyman Brian Dahle, who represents Siskiyou County and much of Northern California. “If the people of Siskiyou County are successful in creating their own state I will be the first to seek the office of governor,” Dahle said in statement released by his office. Dahle has also recalled similar sentiments from his constituents while serving as a Lassen County supervisor for 16 years. “The one thing it does bring to mind is it does draw some attention to Sacramento that the folks are very unhappy in the north,” he said. “They feel — because we have so much land and such small population — that Southern California and the Bay Area seem to steam roll us.” Modoc County Supervisor Geri Byrne is bringing a discussion on whether the county will back the separation to her colleagues later this month. “I don’t want to tell them (Southern California) how to manage their traffic jams and I’d appreciate it if they didn’t tell us how to ranch,” she said. Byrne noted the strong Republican streak in Modoc County, which supported Republican candidates by a more than a two-to-one margin in November’s election. While the split isn’t as dramatic in other North State counties, their votes still lean to the right in sharp contrast with larger urban and coastal cities in California. Mohler, the Tehama County man trying to get his county behind splitting, said the North State thrived until a few decades ago and has been slipping ever since. He too noted a lack of representation for the North State. “They used to listen to us in Sacramento when we were vibrant counties,” Mohler said. “Everything’s changed, they used to listen to us and now we listen to them.” But Mohler and other advocates note the generally rough condition of the North State’s economy is a real challenge to the success of any state that would be formed. Because of that and other reasons, political science professors who’ve tracked such trends as they emerge locally and elsewhere find reason to doubt the latest push toward dividing the state will succeed. DOUBTING SUCCESS For the new state to succeed it would have to overcome financial and regulatory obstacles. The U.S. Constitution does allow for the formation of new states, though those that wish to carve out territory from existing states require approval from that state’s Legislature and the U.S. Congress. “This is all about political constituencies that find themselves at a disadvantage within the context of some larger jurisdiction. There is no doubt that the northern regions of the state, due to their lack of population, tend to exercise less influence than do other regions,” said Max Neimann, a senior resident fellow at U.C. Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies. “But ‘secessionists’ should know Congress would be very concerned about the political make-up of the new state and there is virtually no chance that Congress would go along with this, particularly in a closely divided national Legislature.” Starr, the USC history professor, said there have been some 220 proposals to split California since the 1850s. Rural counties are also more likely to take more in tax money than they give out. A 2010 report by the state’s non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office found 10 North State counties were among the top recipients per-capita of tax dollars from the state, according to the San-Jose Mercury News. That same study found wealthier and more populated counties — especially those along in the Bay Area and near Los Angeles — were among the areas that paid the most per-capita in those same tax dollars, the Mercury News reported. Beyond that doubt is the problem of how to split — if at all — California’s presence in the North State in the form of the Department of Transportation, California Highway Patrol, community colleges and other agencies. The 13 counties eyed for possible inclusion spent some $70 million on Superior Court operations in fiscal 2011-12 alone, according to state budget documents. “There are a lot of practical problems,” said Shaun Bolwer, a political science professor at U.C. Riverside. “Who will take on the state debt? What about the water? And the state university system? “ Bowler noted that other states have managed to split, even if the most recent was at the onset of the Civil War. India created a new state recently and Czechoslovakia was able to divide into two countries successfully, but there are practical problems of finance and infrastructure to sort out, he said. “Part of the issue of course is what is to be gained by a breakup and who has to approve? In some ways it makes sense that Siskiyou might feel under-appreciated in the state because all the attention is focused on the Bay Area and L.A. or even Sacramento,” he said. “But then residents in U.S. states — unlike some of the other examples I mentioned — have the fairly easy option of moving to another state.” A similar point was made — albeit more confrontationally — by a staffer of Gov. Jerry Brown in 2011 after a movement to split California surfaced in Riverside County. “It’s a supremely ridiculous waste of everybody’s time,” Brown spokesman Gil Duran said in a 2011 Los Angeles Times article. “If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there’s a place called Arizona.’’ Baird, recalling that line after the flood of media coverage after Tuesday’s vote in Siskiyou County, said he was “a little bit horrified” that the spokesman for a man who is supposed to represent the state’s population would encourage a portion of it to leave. He and other advocates acknowledge the issues and challenges to a new state becoming a reality and will freely recognize their counties as “welfare counties” that take in more tax revenue than they generate. But, they’re still cautiously optimistic that their plan could succeed. PUSHING AHEAD It’s that motivation that’s pushing the movement ahead. Baird plans to speak before Modoc County supervisors later this month when the idea of supporting a split comes before them. “I would think (residents) would be in favor of it,” said Byrne, the Modoc County supervisor asking for the discussion. Mohler said he’s setting up a booth at the Tehama District Fair at the end of September to distribute information and take signatures from supporters. He plans to present the signatures to his county’s board sometime in the future. Mohler said the new state would still face regulation from the federal government but a fresh start could help the area prosper. “I think there would be people from Southern California coming up here with a more business-friendly atmosphere in the North State,” he said. Baird is confident that issues about infrastructure and finances could be sorted out if the move to split is approved. Much of the need to find funding for larger statewide agencies could be eliminated by simply handling matters such as policing and road maintenance at the county level. “We don’t need a state police force in a small state,” he said. Shasta County Supervisor Les Baugh said he has yet to take a position on the issue, despite frequently railing against the state and having little-to-no confidence in California’s government. “My dad said to us as kids ‘don’t say yes or no to something until you know what you’re saying yes or no to,’” Baugh said. Some of his questions include what the new state’s economic base would look like and if deregulation would help revive struggling economies. Baugh also said the issue could be highly charged and may come down to a split vote if the issue reaches Shasta County but he’ll also be watching how other counties handle it. “I think that as this moves along there will be more questions,” he said. Though the campaign may only wind up as statement, Baird said he’s not pushing forward merely to make a point. “Nothing worth doing is easy and I would push forward with it because to do otherwise would be to guarantee the same unworkable, unimaginable morass of policies in rural California,” he said
Posted on: Sun, 08 Sep 2013 15:46:35 +0000
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