A group of California citizens want to break away from the rest of the state and form something they're calling "New California."
On Monday, the founders of New California read an official Declaration of Independence. In public documents, the group says: "The current state of California has become governed by a tyranny."
"After years of over taxation, regulation, and mono-party politics the State of California and many of it’s 58 Counties have become ungovernable," they explained in a statement. The proposed split would see most of the densely populated coastal cities stay in California, while the rest of the rural part of the state would become New California.
"The nature of the state becoming ungovernable has caused a decline in essential basic services such as education, law enforcement, fire protection, transportation, housing, health care, taxation, voter rights, banking, state pension systems, prisons, state parks, water resource management, home ownership, infrastructure and many more," New California's executive summary says.
The founders of New California say it would become the sixth largest state and have an estimated 25-27 seats in the US House of Representatives. One of the founders, Tom Reed, tells USA Today that they plan "to demonstrate that we can govern ourselves before we are allowed to govern.”
The initiative is a long shot, however. It follows several other failed attempts over the years at a similar proposition, and it would require a series of unlikely votes from state lawmakers.
The San Diego Tribune points out that: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress."
Twitter remains largely unconvinced as well.
