Epley: California dreamin’ — of independence: Could the Golden State ever secede?

If you like me in newest days have wistfully considered a utopian fantasy where an economically powerful country of California breaks away from the chaos of a second Donald Trump presidency then I have both good news and bad news for you The good news is that the fantasy seems to be rapidly gaining sponsorship A new YouGov poll of California adults commissioned by the Independent California Institute last month reports a record high who say they would vote for the state to secede from America and become a fully independent nation The bad news There s no such thing as a Californian utopia in fantasy or reality and certainly not one where the likes of Gov Gavin Newsom is in charge California s secession from the union would be so impossible as to be nearly apocalyptic according to one of the nation s top constitutional scholars It is not surprising that talk of secession in California has increased in latest weeks wrote the dean of UC Berkeley s School of Law Erwin Chemerinsky Ultimately though the question is whether the federal regime would allow California to secede At this point it is inconceivable that the federal cabinet would permit this and allow the United States leadership to come apart Chemerinsky revealed in an email President Trump already has shown a willingness to use the United States military within the state I imagine there would be a military takeover of California in particular way as occurred in the South in the Civil War The path without consent of the federal authorities is apocalyptic Country of California This certainly isn t the first time Californians have considered latest away Notably the partition of Southern California from the northern part of the state has been a topic of debate since even before California was admitted as a state in From the Pico Act of that sought to split the busy north state apart from the then-lightly populated counties of southern California to the indomitable efforts of northern State of Jefferson supporters to the New California movement that seeks to razor off Sacramento and the west coast and the burgeoning CalExit secession movement California has perpetually wrestled with its size and identity in the larger picture of America But there s something in the air these days that makes the idea feel decreasingly bonkers Perhaps that s because President Trump is literally fighting a war against California Chemerinsky reported Trump has reported that he wants to use the military to liberate Los Angeles He has deployed troops against the desires of the state and city He has threatened to cut off all funds to California even though the state pays more in taxes than it receives in federal money Not surprisingly then multiple are saying they don t want to be ruled by him the nation s leading constitutional scholar asserted In that same spirit a group advocating for the state s secession is now attempting to gather enough signatures to place the question on voters ballots next year Should California leave the United States and become a free and independent country The CalExit group demands signatures before July to qualify for the November ballot but has at the moment garnered less than half of the required amount Yet the man behind the effort remains hopeful We are further along in the last month and a half than I have been in -plus years announced Marco Ruiz Evans a Fresno native and California secession advocate who co-founded the CalExit movement Evans noted the idea of California secession saw a large boost in interest after the Palisades Fire in January People were in a chaotic horrible situation and Donald Trump basically revealed I m not sure I want to send calamity assistance because I m not sure I like you guys Evans explained People were shocked that politics would come into play for catastrophe assistance The Independent California Institute a libertarian think tank based in Oakland revealed in early July that of adult Californians say they trust Sacramento s executive more than Washington D C s while only say the reverse According to the poll another say California would be better off with special autonomous status within the U S of Californians would vote for a ballot measure for peaceful legal secession but would vote against of Californians want California police to arrest federal immigration officers that exceed their authority or act maliciously and of Californians want to control borders with other states like a country Chemerinsky referenced a different poll administered in by the University of Virginia Center for Politics which revealed that of Biden voters and more than half of Trump voters reported they somewhat agree it would be best to split the country by red and blue states I think at this moment that has changed and secession talk will increase in blue states Chemerinsky reported Given how far right Trump is governing the question has to be whether what unites us as a country is greater than what divides us But is a peaceful secession even practicable Ehhhh allegedly not And whatever movement emerges is unlikely to stay peaceful for long A poll by the Los Angeles Times in determined that of Republicans consider California not really American One nation indivisible California certainly wouldn t be the first state to try to secede And even if we totally ignore the whole y know American Civil War secession predicament it really hasn t gone well for anyone who s tried In the early s the nationalist Alaskan Independence Party got an initiative on the ballot there proposing secession But they only needed signatures not more than and ultimately the initiative was rejected by the state s elections authority as seeking an unconstitutional action When it conclusively got in front of the Alaska Supreme Court the justices agreed and concluded that secession from the Union is clearly unconstitutional But secessionists often like to invoke the Supreme Court decision in Texas v White a fight over bond sales by Confederate Texas which ultimately led to a determination that states do not have the constitutional power to unilaterally secede And therefore any bond sales by Confederate Texas were invalid and now legally owned by the post-war state The Constitution merely has no mechanism for legal secession Chemerinsky noted The Constitution says absolutely nothing about how states can choose to opt out of the United States he revealed In Texas v White the Court revealed secession was not workable based on general language in the Preamble to the Constitution he added calling it a very tenuous argument More importantly Chemerinsky pointed out the Court declared that The union between Texas and the other States was as complete as perpetual and as indissoluble as the union between the original States There was no place for reconsideration or revocation except through revolution or through consent of the States So the very decision that is mentioned to make secession impermissible explicitly says that it is allowed with consent of the states Chemerinsky stated In other words a voluntary dissolution in several form would be allowed under the Supreme Court s only precedent considering the constitutionality of secession It s that unclear decision that secessionists like to hang their hat on Yet Californian secession remains a pipe dream for much more practical reasons President Trump and the federal administration would never consent to California s departure And how would the state deal with the federal land and tools within the state How would we defend ourselves Would other states secede along with us And so secession remains a utopian fantasy for liberals fueled by the increasingly large gap in political values between California and President Trump and perhaps also by the literal geographic gap between the nation s west coast and east coast But it s sure nice to dream isn t it Robin Epley is a Sacramento Bee columnist The Sacramento Bee Distributed by Tribune Content Agency