In California's rural, conservative north, there are big dreams for cleaving the state
The two young, blond women in figure-flattering ball gowns hoisted whiskey and shotguns.
An auctioneer rattled off bids. Above the stage in the banquet hall hung a green flag for the 51st state of Jefferson, with its pair of Xs called a “double-cross” representing a sense of rural abandonment.
Hundreds of people packed into the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9650 hall on this chilly Saturday night, ready to crack open wallets to help fund their dream of carving — out of California’s northernmost reaches — a brand new state.
Someone offered $350 for a state of Jefferson belt buckle. Someone else won a lamb, still in its mother’s womb, that should be born in time to be butchered for Easter. Outside, vehicles bore bumper stickers supporting President Trump and the 2nd Amendment.
“We Okies are fun, aren’t we?” one man quipped.
The scene last month in this small Shasta County city seemed like a perfect we’re-not-in-California-anymore-moment. That is, if you only knew California as the diverse, liberal bastion whose elected officials have tried to stymie the Trump administration’s moves on immigration, legalized marijuana, climate change and so on.
But the so-called Northstate is looking less and less like the rest of the Golden State. The vast, sparsely-populated region is whiter, more rural and poorer than the rest of the state — and residents are more conservative. While California has become the center of the resistance to Trump, a number of Northern Californians are waging a resistance of their own: against California itself.
State of Jefferson auction
Larry Miller, left, and Vern Garrett look at auction items, including a handgun, at a fundraiser in support of establishing the state of Jefferson. At right, Norman Oilar looks at a portrait of Thomas Jefferson that was up for bid. Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times
Inside the banquet hall, the man many see as the founder of the modern Jefferson movement told the crowd that their gun rights, property rights, grazing rights and water rights were under siege by politicians who write them off as “country bumpkins.”
“You’re the ones being exterminated by a lack of liberty,” said Mark Baird, a Siskiyou County rancher.
The breakaway state of Jefferson is a decades-old idea, but it has been revived in earnest in recent years by residents who say they are fed up with their voices being drowned out in Sacramento, where outspoken urban Democrats hold a vise grip on the state Legislature.
Supporters say overregulation has hobbled rural industries such as timber, mining and fishing and that the state’s high taxes and cost of living are driving young people away, quickening the decline of small towns. They chafe under California’s strict gun-control policies and are infuriated by its liberal immigration laws.
They cite California’s new gas tax increase of 12 cents per gallon, saying it has an outsize impact on rural people who drive farther for work and basic needs such as hospitals, schools and grocery stores.
How likely is it that a new state will be broken off, like a piece of Kit Kat bar, from California? Not likely at all, experts say.
Eric McGhee, a political scientist at the Public Policy Institute of California, said that while you can “never say never,” there are too many legal obstacles to overcome.
“It’s easy to think that because there’s this large piece of territory, that it’s a large share of California in terms of the population," he said. “That’s just not the case. … It’s an absolutely minuscule portion of the state’s population.”
Supporters of a breakaway state say they are sorely underestimated and point to the number of passionate people who show up to their events. One man put it this way: “We’re not a bunch of dumb rednecks.”
When we first started ... people would say, ‘What’s Jefferson? ... Now, they’re saying, ‘When are you going to get this done?
Janet Chandler
State of Jefferson auction
Clockwise from top left: Jeri Carstens holds a metal seal for the state of Jefferson. The Jefferson seal is engraved on the stock of a shotgun at a recent auction. Raffle tickets, designed to look like money, are displayed. A handmade belt buckle up for bid is shown. Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times
But some Northern Californians have had enough of talk of breaking away from California. After several county boards began considering Jefferson proposals, Kevin Hendrick, a retired municipal employee from Crescent City, in Del Norte County, formed a political action committee in 2015 called Keep It California to oppose the idea.
“You’ve got a handful of residents that are grumpy and pining for the good old days, but that shouldn’t represent all the good people living in rural counties,” he said.
Hendrick said there are rural issues that do need more attention, such as access to affordable healthcare and the internet, but that separating from California would be financially devastating.
“People need hope, yes,” he said. “They don’t need false hope.”
There has been plenty of talk recently about cleaving California. There was the failed 2014 effort to split the state into six states. There’s a plan to form New California, which includes everything but a sliver of wealthy, urban coastal counties. And there’s Calexit, the movement for the state to secede from the Union entirely, an idea that gained steam after Trump’s election.
Jefferson, which has included some Oregon counties in various iterations, precedes them. In one of the movement’s most colorful eras, armed separatists in November 1941 set up roadblocks along Highway 99 in Siskiyou County. But the movement was halted days later when Pearl Harbor was bombed.
Jefferson State of Mine radio show
Win Carpenter, right, and Terry Rapoza talk during their radio show, "Jefferson State of Mine," at a KCNR-AM 1460 Free Fire Radio studio in Redding on Feb. 18. Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times
The modern Jefferson movement was kicked off in 2013 when boards of supervisors in Siskiyou and Modoc counties passed declarations of support for withdrawing from California.
Win Carpenter, a Jefferson organizer from Redding, said declarations from 21 counties have been filed with state officials. Some are proclamations by county boards of supervisors; others are collections of signatures by residents.
Carpenter, 55, a seventh-generation Shasta County resident, quit his job as an appraiser in the county assessor’s office in 2015 to devote his time to Jefferson. Days later, he told the Shasta County Board of Supervisors that, although the board had declined to support the breakaway state, advocates had gathered thousands of signatures anyway.
“As your employers, we have decided you will not be representing us on this issue,” he told the supervisors. “Therefore, we are moving ahead without you.”
If Jefferson became a state, it would have 1.7 million residents, a population bigger than 13 other states. It would be 73% white. Present-day California has roughly the same number of whites and Latinos, at about 14.8 million each.
Dig deeper into the area’s demographics in The Times’ Jefferson census
Jefferson supporters have their hopes set on a federal lawsuit. Last year, a group called Citizens for Fair Representation — including Carpenter, Baird and other Jefferson proponents along with a Native American tribe, the California Libertarian Party and the city of Fort Jones, Calif. — sued the state, alleging an unconstitutional lack of representation and dilution of vote.
California’s 120 state legislators, the suit states, cannot adequately represent 40 million residents. In Northern California, one senator represents nine counties and parts of two more. The idea, Baird said, is for California to either be forced to add thousands more legislators or that the state would refuse and let Jefferson leave.
Shasta County, California
Clockwise from top left: Flags for the U.S. and the state of Jefferson fly in Anderson. Visitors take in the view from Burney Mountain Vista Point. Burney Falls in Shasta County is shown, along with the Sundial Bridge in Redding. Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times
Baird had just finished an impassioned speech about Jefferson in Placerville last month when Riley Taresh, 19, stepped up to the microphone, her voice solemn.
“How much longer do we have to wait?” she asked. “I only have a few more years where I can go to school here before I have to leave because I won’t be able to afford to stay in California.”
Taresh, of Shingle Springs, works part time at Payless ShoeSource while attending Folsom Lake College. She can’t afford to move out of her parents’ home. She wants to work in the medical field and stay in Northern California, but “as a working-class poor, it is not possible for me,” she said. She believes her chances at getting into a four-year state university were hindered, in part, because she is white.
“I’m like, excuse me, I have to work my butt off to get anywhere, and you’re going to hand illegals … a driver’s license, you’re going to hand them an education, and I have to work my butt off until I’m in tears and begging for help to get anywhere. No.”
Mike Murray, 32, of Rocklin, said he hates “the perception that it is these old white people that just want to go around and spit their tobacky and shoot their guns.”
Murray has been trying to attract younger, more diverse people. He sees Jefferson as a “reset button.” An uncle of his packed up his business and moved to Texas because of high taxes. His in-laws are frustrated by California’s strict gun laws, which, he said, aren’t feasible for them since they are rural farmers who would have to wait a half-hour for police if someone broke in.
I just like the whole idea of getting back to the Constitution, getting back to the principles that made this country great in the first place.
Sally Rapoza
Sally Rapoza
Sally Rapoza hands out pamphlets a Rotary Club meeting in February. Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times
Just after 7 a.m. on a recent Friday, Terry Rapoza stood before the Sunrise Rotary Club at a Redding Best Western explaining the case for Jefferson while his wife, Sally, handed out pamphlets.
A stout, mustachioed man with a booming belly-laugh, Rapoza said there was “no rule of law in the state of California.” He recently called a White House hotline to say Gov. Jerry Brown had repeatedly violated the Constitution.
A gregarious couple in their 60s, the Rapozas, of Redding, helped start a local tea party group shortly after President Obama took office. A 2009 tea party protest at Redding’s Sundial Bridge drew some 2,000 people, and their son, Clayton, a labor organizer and Civil War reenactor, dressed as a Revolutionary War minuteman and led protesters across the walkway.
“I just like the whole idea of getting back to the Constitution, getting back to the principles that made this country great in the first place,” Sally Rapoza said of Jefferson.
For the Rapozas, California’s sanctuary policies are emblematic of the unchecked power of the state Democratic party. They were thrilled when the Shasta County Board of Supervisors approved a non-sanctuary resolution last month.
“Why are we allowing illegal aliens to come into our country?” Sally said. “I mean, that’s an invasion. … It feels like our rights are being diminished and their rights are being exploited, actually, because the Democrats want votes and the Republicans want cheap workers.”
Sally, whose organizing skills earned her the moniker Rally Sally, uses her Facebook page to live-stream events and drum up Jefferson support. The official State of Jefferson website lists her as a social media organizer. She also shares political posts on her page, including Breitbart articles and a meme calling Hillary Clinton “the Russian spy who hacked our primaries.”
Terry co-hosts a weekly AM radio show, “Jefferson State of Mine,” with Carpenter. It opens with a country song about Jefferson: It’s a wave on a dusty road. It’s a logger’s heavy load. It’s the cattle on the hills. It’s the ridge full of thrills.
Redding, Calif.
People cross the street in the Shasta County town of Redding. Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times
In the small mountain town of Burney, Harold and Janet Chandler live on a quiet street among the pine trees. They have a Jefferson sign in their yard and Jefferson coffee mugs in their cupboards.
The couple — she a retired school teacher, he a retired California Highway Patrol officer — moved to Burney in 1991, when it was a bustling logging town with two clothing stores, two shoe stores, two grocery stores, they said. But the timber mills cut back. The families left. Now, shuttered storefronts line Main Street.
Janet, who unsuccessfully ran for county supervisor in 2016 and openly supported Jefferson, said regulations would be eased in the new state, bringing back jobs — and hope. She and Harold are on a committee that recently finished writing a 29-page Jefferson constitution.
“When we first started handing out brochures and carrying signs at parades, people would say, ‘What’s Jefferson?’” Janet said. “Then, the phrase became, ‘Oh, it’s a good idea, but it’s never going to happen.’ Now, they’re saying, ‘When are you going to get this done?’”
hailey.branson@latimes.com
Twitter: @haileybranson
Los Angeles Times staff writer Ryan Menezes contributed to this report.
Dig deeper into the area’s demographics in The Times’ Jefferson census http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-state-of-jefferson-activists-20180317-htmlstory.html
Yawn. Move to Idaho or Wyoming, California is not dividing. We are the 6th biggest economy in the world and now a leader in the vacuum Trump is leaving. If you don't like it here, find a state more to your liking. I don't mind cutting some of our taxes, we can agree on some things, but no way you are carving up the state. There are places waiting that are just the way you like them.
Agreed.
Reynolds v. Sims has already established states don't have to base representation by geography.
Funny, I feel the same way about gerrymandering. It over-represents rural populations, which means a majority popular vote still translates to far fewer seats. The minority wins the majority.
You have the very same representation at the federal level that everyone else has so stop bellyaching. California has 2 Senators and the representatives are determined by population. The potential area of Jefferson is so sparesely populated that you have 1 member in the House of Represantives.
Same thing with the electoral college. No surprise that it's a vestige of slavery and white supremacy.
One question you have not addressed yet. Do you have the support of the local Native Americans? I don't think they will be happy to be removed from the whole of California just to suit a bunch of white right wing lunatics, as it could, and likely would, affect their Tribe in a very negative way. There are several Native American Reservations in No Calif, and dividing, or trying to reestablish their location would be a very difficult thing to do, and not without a good deal of legal involvement.
Oh.....wait.....Native Americans are not 'white', so they would not need to be considered dealing with. Right?
Good try. They will have an opportunity to voice opinions. Trying to stir it up aren't you?
Stir things up? Why? Just because YOU don't like my question? It IS a legitimate question whether YOU think so or not. If anyone is trying to stir something up here it is YOU. Or do you think Native Americans in that area don't deserve consideration? As far as having input, I have not seen or heard anything that suggests that. And being a Native American who does live in Calif I am very curious about how that will be handled.
If you don't know what you are talking about, best not to butt in and let everyone know just how little you do know about the subject.
You do realize that Native American Reservations are not the property of Calif. They are under the wing of the Federal Government. How YOU want to deal with them is mute, you have to deal with the Federal Government in relation to the Reservations.
What you want and how has no bearing at all when it comes to Indian Reservations. And I don't think that those who live on the Reservations will be all that happy to give up the benefits they enjoy under the State of Calif that I doubt that the new state could manage to uphold.
Obviously.....this has not been thoroughly considered by those who want to have them annexed into a new state, nor how the Government would agree to.
I already live in a state to my liking, and it certainly is not California! I live in SE Arizona where we do not have the garbage that emanates from the looney progressive leftist liberals that run California. Spent several years being stationed in CA when I was in the Navy and could not wait to leave that cesspool of a state! You like it so much, you are welcome to it.
Like it or not , there is a precident case that could be followed , simply look at how West Virginia became a state, US citizens disenfranchised legislatively from the rest of the state of Virginia , without course of redress.
now if the disenfranchisement can be proven , I doubt , that the other states would deny , a new state admission into the union, the area already would meet the population requirements requirements for statehood , all that would really need to happen is the writing of a state constitution that the other states find acceptable, and the admissions vote by congress and from there the election of its government officers.
if the northern counties win in court about being legislatively disenfranchised , we very well could see another state formed and admitted.
So we'll need California to first secede from the union then we'll need another civil war then we'll get the State of Jefferson? That seems pretty unlikely to happen in the US.
shrek , I gave a single example but there are others , so secession actually wouldn't need to be a prerequisite as you posit , Maine was created out of Massachusettes, yes it was once part of Mass. Tennessee, Kentucky were both parts of land grants to both Virginia and the Carolinas, Idaho was once part of Wyoming territory until consideration for statehood came up, Washington state was also part of Oregon . The Mormons once laid claim to an area they named Deseret, which not only included Utah , but Nevada , parts of Arizona , New Mexico, Idaho , Wyoming , and parts of both Colorado and California, a land mass area that would make Texas blush , if that's possible. and all done peacefully And I am sure I missed others.
The point actually is if disenfranchisement of citizens can be proven and it doesn't matter how it comes about , simply the fact it happens , and the disenfrachansized people have no recourse or redress to fix the situation, they do have the right to petition the federal government in the formation of an entirely new state , of course , conditions for the formation of a new state have to be met and are already laid out , I already mentioned population , that's but one of a few conditions , otherwise the feds could make them a territory subject to governance by political appointees, which I am sure no one desires.
As has been mentioned , it all depends on what the courts would decide , and what redress they might order , there are too many variables to say for sure exactly what would happen right now , the odds say its not plausible currently , but if the courts decide otherwise , , it can fall in the realm of possibility.
I am sure you are aware that those separations were accomplished in the comparatively early history of the nation, this attempt is more of appeasing a cultish ideology. Arguably the justifications of yesteryear may have had similar drivers, but our world has changed remarkably since. Perhaps if the cleaving of CA is moved forward then the statehood of Puerto Rico and other possessions would need review.
you make a valid point , that most were done some time ago , the last 2 states admitted to the union happened in 1959, , and the fact that break off states hasn't happened in over 100 years doesn't really mean anything if the conditions exist currently that could lead to the situation.
I also agree that statehood for US posessions( old world colonialism) should also be revisited , the issue with PR is they have continually voted AGAINST petitioning for statehood themselves internally for a mirad of reasons , one being even without statehood as a protectorate/ possession , they are afforded citizenship, their representation is tied to the fact they are not a state and thus not taxed as any other state on the federal level. I am pretty sure , the residents of these protectorates and possessions , look at all the different angles to which suits them best.
and until they petition for statehood themselves , no one can make them become a state.
State borders have been stable for a long time and there are no more territories in the continental US. So that issue is off the table.
But it's quite relevant that WV split from VA after secession because VA claimed it was no longer subject to US laws. The relevance is the neoconfederate white supremacist utopia of Cascadia which is the true origin of the "State of Jefferson" movement.
you are aware that the Cascadia movement is separate and different from the Jefferson movement right? and have different political motivations?
The proposed country largely would consist of the Canadian province of British Columbia and the US States of Washington and Oregon. At its maximum extent, Cascadia would stretch from coastal Southeast Alaska in the north into Northern California in the south, and inland to include parts of Idaho, Western Montana, Wyoming, and Yukon. More conservative advocates propose borders that include the land west of the crest of Cascade Range, and the western side of British Columbia.
Cascadian secessionist movements generally state that their political motivations deal mostly with political, economic, cultural and ecological ties, as well as the beliefs that the eastern federal governments are out of touch, slow to respond, and hinder state and provincial attempts at further bioregional integration. These connections go back to the Oregon Territory, and further back to the Oregon Country, the land most commonly associated with Cascadia, and the last time the region was treated as a single political unit, though administered by two countries. Some have asserted that political protest in the wake of the 2004 presidential election appears to be the primary reason for renewed separatist movements throughout states with substantial Democratic majorities, such as Washington and Oregon.
being the Jefferson movement is a rightwing politically motivated situation , where as they wish to simply form a new state still being loyal to the US, the Cascadian movement is a decidedly leftwing movement comprised of democrats fed up with the short comings of the federal government and regulation desiring to create and form an entirely new country out of areas they actually don't have a voting block in most areas , let alone involving another soverign countries territory ( I really wonder how the Canadians will react to being dragged into it), so this is really talking apples and oranges to compare the Cascadian movement to the Jefferson movement.
LOL. Cascadia wasn't a leftwing movement, it was a rightwing white supremacist movement which sought to return to the kind of whites-only utopia which Oregon was at its founding. While there are a number of different "Cascadia" groups today including a leftist eco-friendly group, quite a few are still white supremacist like True Cascadia.
the only Cascadia movement I am aware of resurfaced right after trump was elected and has always from my knowledge been a progressive movement on the far left fringe and calexit was being bandied about at the time the northern and southern coastal progressives disagreed with each other , currently its made up of west coast progressive liberals that think if it came to pass , that existing state lines would be the new borders, and that all businesses , such as boeing would remain , as well as any military infrastructure. problem they have is the businesses wouldn't stay , their reach would only extend to where they hold a majority , whats that about 100 miles outside the progressive districts? and have no way of convincing those in the intermountain west of Idaho , Montana or Wyoming to join them outside use of force, hell Wyoming only has 1 small county on its western border that consistently votes dem, and that's not saying they vote progressive. that's not even bringing up those in BC that would laugh their asses off at them for even thinking they would join, and I wont even bring up what those in Alaska would say.
But you go right ahead and continue to think its a white supremacist fantasy , even when facts dictate otherwise , at least the Jefferson movement has an inkling of being possible if the situation is decided in certain ways through the courts .
a person of reasonable intelligence if curious enough will do their own research and decide for themselves the truth as it applies to themselves.
sorta like the history of the democratic party being pro slavery, pro Jim Crow laws, anti civil rights , anti suffragette movement?
it only took 150 some years for the current dem party to change positions , but only 50 years for republicans to regress to a point if progressives are to be believed.
Dc would then become the smallest state in the union , sorry Rhode Island, they would be better off if they chose Virginia or Maryland to be represented by , besides , Dc itself was not intended to be lived in , it was simply where the seat of government was to meet.
LOL. One of the leading proponents of "a" Cascadia movement in Eugene is a pot entrepreneur and a white supremacist.
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As far as the Calexit guy he voted for Trump and was a key member of the anti-LGBT hate group NOM before that, and is now living a very white and straight life in Russia.
The difference of course being that the Dems no longer hold those odious views while quite a few of the Cascadia groups still do, as does the GOP.
In fact a number of white nationalist / white supremacist / Christian Dominionist groups owe their lineage directly to the original neoconfederate Cascadia movement, including the Posse Comitatus, Bundyites, and III percenters.
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That's a comment rich in irony given that the GOP started to shift its positions as a result of the New Deal.....immediately after the end of the Progressive era. That's not a coincidence since some of the key Progressives were Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and "fighting Bob" La Follette. They wouldn't recognize the modern GOP.
pot grower that's a neo Nazi and pro Cascadia, actually makes sense really , if Cascadia ever came to being , progressives would not outlaw pot , his main business so no dealing with US designations on local state and federal levels. follow the money as they say . as for repub progressives of the early 20th century not recognizing the party as it is today? no arguments here , they wouldn't hell I don't even recognize the party of today as the one I learned about when I was younger, maybe that's why I am not a republican , but in the same respect neither would Truman , or FDR or even LBJ or Kennedy recognize what passes as democrat today. all pretty much known as being somewhat conservative as needed only one that was actually close to progressives of today was FDR and he was more of a conservative socialist
LOL.....you mean the folks responsible for the New Deal, Social Security, Medicare and the Civil Rights Act? Or the guy who famously guaranteed his absolute support for secular government? I suspect they'd fit in very well with the Dems today and they most certainly wouldn't find a home in the modern GOP which opposes pretty much everything they stood for.
No one is forcing you to remain in CA. Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.
He’s trying to leave. If he and others can create the state of Jefferson, they won’t be in California anymore.
The State of Jefferson (Davis?) is just another failed attempt by conservative hicks to create their own safe space and claim they're superior to "them city folk".
That's part of it, but there's also the whole white supremacist aspect of the mythical Cascadia.
The western white supremacists already have Idaho, Montana and North Dakota.
And eastern & southern Oregon, and Utah and parts of Nevada and Arizona......
Why create a state for a bunch of white supremacists that will all be dead within 20 years.
If they want to get away from oppressive liberals, they can buy an island...problems solved.
Atlantis by way of shipping containers sounds feasible.
Move to Texas, Mississippi or Alabama.
Don't need to, I like where I live thank you.
I live in New York State, actually I live less than a 5 minute drive from where I grew up. How about you, are you ready to move to an island?
All I see on this thread is more examples of tone deaf liberal arrogance. I wouldn't wish for anybody in any state to have to suffer under liberal oppressiveness.
I imagine the pot growers will have an issue with secessionists.
That depends......this pot entrepreneur in Oregon is a neo-Nazi and a Cascadia proponent:
Coming from a member of the tantrum victims if it ain't our way we won't play club who do you think you are impressing?
Remind me which side is calling itself "The Resistance" and rioted during the Inauguration again.
Kind of sounds like a political 700 club, give us money and in return we'll give you, well nothing.
There is as much a chance of this happening as there is me growing hair on my forehead again, not going to happen.
Sounds like Quebec about every decade they are feeling marginalized because of language and want to become an independent country, at least they have something to complain about. They are a good reference for the U.S. in how valuable a common language is.
West Virginia isn’t the only example of a breakaway state. Kentucky broke away from Virginia, Maine broke away from Massachusetts, and Vermont broke away from New York.
Just thinking. California is now a sanctuary state and Jefferson is resisting it. Los Alamitos recently voted to resist as well claiming that the state of California is bullying local jurisdictions into violating their oath of office to uphold the US constitution.
Trump is trying to defund sanctuary jurisdictions, an action with which I agree. Sanctuary states/cities, on the other hand, are beginning to divert taxpayer money to help illegal aliens fight deportation. Maybe, in addition to defunding sanctuary states/cities, Trump should also consider funding (or otherwise supporting) the legal defense of areas that fight their state’s sanctuary policies. The more Jefferson resists the state and acts like a separate jurisdiction to uphold the law (rather than impede it as California is doing), the more credibility it has in declaring its independence from California. If it wins, there will be two more conservative senators in the senate to help speed the confirmation of conservative judges. Alternatively, California may abandon its sanctuary policy to prevent the state from breaking up.
Of course, that's standard rightwing BULLSHIT. The CA law does not prevent local police from coordinating with ICE for undocumented immigrants who commit serious crimes, including some misdemeanors. Federal immigration authorities are completely unaffected by the law. They can still trample all over people as they've been doing. They just can't demand that local police be their accomplices. But this does lay bare once again the massive hypocrisy of those people who claim to champion states' rights and has always only meant supporting states which are trying to limit some peoples' rights rather than protect them.
Total nonsense. California is in near open rebellion against federal immigration enforcement. Federal law does not say that only criminals can be deported. Instead it says that anybody in the country illegally is subject to deportation. Federal law says that ICE can require companies to demonstrate that its employees are in the country legally. What the republic of California did was tell companies that they can’t cooperate with ICE unless it produces a warrant or subpoena. That subjects companies to local fines if they comply with the federal requests and to federal fines if they refuse. This is clearly designed to impede federal enforcement of federal immigration law when federal immigration law is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, not the state.
But California didn’t stop there. They went in to limit the information that can be shared with the feds concerning illegal aliens housed in penal institutions.
This is so bad that the Justice Department has filed suit against the state of California. As I said, I think the federal government should do more and help law abiding localities fight their sanctuary state laws in any way that they can. Flood the state with ICE agents and bust California like a pimple. If they’re not doing so already, ICE should arrest and deport every illegal alien who is openly advocating the right to remain here illegally.
Fuck that, I like cheap produce and clean hotel rooms.
The California conservatives in the inland valley are already losing millions because of the xenophobia immigration policies because crops are rotting in the field. I hope that you like paying higher prices for fruits and veggies. You'd think that poor white conservatives would want someone to look down on.
So how does California exist without seasonal agricultural workers? You and your kids going to spend weeks under the hot sun picking all of those melons?
You should just do what Oregon did when it was founded as a whites-only state, only allow non-whites to come during the day as "guest workers" but make sure they don't stay overnight.
Sorry that you don't realize that constitutional protections of due process attach to anyone in this country regardless of citizenship status. ICE is modeling itself on the gestapo.
No I’m not going to pick melons or make beds or drag rocks out of a field. Entry into this country should be done through a legal process, part of which ensures that the person is not a criminal or crazy or disease ridden, and that they can support themselves. If there’s a need for seasonal workers and the need can’t be met with local labor, then employers should seek to get more flexibility in admitting (temporary) seasonal workers at something other than a slave wage.
Nobody wants to pick fruit. Once they get in by jumping the fence, they stay illegally and move on to a better job. Then we need more fruit pickers and the cycle starts over again until we are right where we are now with millions of illegal aliens.
I heard all of these same arguments when Reagan was president. The solution was a one-time amnesty and the problem is now ten times bigger than it was then. I don’t want to hear about fruit pickers or amnesty or open borders. The fix to me is they either come in legally (and I’m flexible on the circumstances) or they keep their asses out.
I have a problem with slavery. That is why I also oppose prison inmate being used by for-profit companies as low-cost labor.
Americans are not going to work in the fields, so why not let immigrants do the jobs that Americans won't? I do agree with raising the wages because that wager will boost the economy when it is spent on goods and services. Personally, I'd like to see farm workers unionize.
You realize immigration enforcement is 100% the responsibility of the federal government right? States and cities are in no way, shape, or form required to assist federal immigration officers in enforcing federal immigration laws. Now if local and state authorities are actively impeding federal agents from carrying out their duties then that is one thing, but not aiding them is a far cry from active interference.
And there is no way in hell California is breaking up. It flat out is not going to happen, period. Anyone who thinks there is even the smallest chance that it will become a reality is an idiot.
Yes it is, which is why the justice department is suing the state of California for impeding enforcement.
California is blocking the voluntary cooperation of private businesses not simply refusing to assist.
There was no way one man would ever be able to marry another and yet it happened. If that can happen, then the state of Jefferson can too.
I'd rather first stop ICE from using gestapo like tactics and expecting the local and state governments to do that kind of work for them.
There is no Jefferson, Ca.
There was no West Virginia either and now there is. Things change.
And it's a real paradise.
Beyond delusional. You don't know anything about Paradise if you think it's on your side. And all those counties the nutcases for secession have added to the list of State of Jefferson are not even close to the original few. You can't even get Del Norte and Siskiyou voters to go along with this idiocy.
“We’re not a bunch of dumb rednecks.”
Okay, so prove it.
“I’m like, excuse me, I have to work my butt off to get anywhere, and you’re going to hand illegals … a driver’s license, you’re going to hand them an education, and I have to work my butt off until I’m in tears and begging for help to get anywhere. No.”
So we're back to dumb rednecks then... No illegals get a college education handed to them for free just because they're illegal. No undocumented immigrants are simply given a drivers license, they have to apply, take a driving test and pay for one like everyone else. A drivers license doesn't make you a citizen.
"The couple — she a retired school teacher, he a retired California Highway Patrol officer — moved to Burney in 1991, when it was a bustling logging town with two clothing stores, two shoe stores, two grocery stores, they said. But the timber mills cut back. The families left. Now, shuttered storefronts line Main Street."
If only they'd let you cut down ALL the trees, then your little rural town would have stayed the two shoe store town it was, right? Are conservatives really that short sighted? Are they really that ignorant of how logging destroys the environment and ecosystems around them? Sure, you get a short term gain where you can afford to buy a cheap home in the middle of nowhere on a loggers salary, but forests take decades to grow back so once you've exhausted the easy picking slow growth forests you're left with a ghost town. It's not like this is a new phenomenon, we have many ghost towns from the days of strip mining and timber logging all over the old west. When the silver or gold run dry, so does the town, and the answer isn't more invasive extraction, it's time to change occupations, butt I guess some just aren't smart enough to do the math.
This city wants nothing to do with California's 'sanctuary state' laws. Will it start a new resistance?
Wait for the rwnj fascists to barricade the roads again. Send in the National Guard, and then the garbage trucks.
This crap again from the same crap merchant. It's a nut-case idea that has basically no popular support in this "State of Jefferson" area. When put to a public vote it has failed miserably in its most centrally located of the original counties that made up this virtual "state." This author is a modern carpetbagger as well. The nerve of someone coming from another state and then trying to ruin it is beyond measure. If he doesn't like CA let him go back to the rightwing shithole "paradise" he came from.
When you have to say that as a defense for something it really does tend to undermine the cause.
Kinda one of those "if you have to say it" sort of things.
Like Trump bragging about how smart he is.
"If Jefferson became a state, it would have 1.7 million residents, a population bigger than 13 other states. It would be 73% white. Present-day California has roughly the same number of whites and Latinos, at about 14.8 million each."
I think I know why Jefferson dreamers (who coincidentally seem to hate the actual Dreamers) want their own state. "73% white"....
I doubt that 73% white is enough for them. They'd prefer something in the mid-90s.
I think they just want out of the looney bin that California has become. Apparently, some people in southern Oregon feel the same way and want to join, I thought this was a joke but, after reading more about it, these guys are serious and organized.
Question. Los Alamitos recently voted to exempt itself from California’s sanctuary law on the grounds that the state is trying to bully them into rebelling against federal immigration enforcement. Apparently, other counties may do the same.
While this is going on, I understand that the counties who want to create the state of Jefferson sued California, claiming that they are underrepresented in the legislature. The strategy behind the lawsuit is explained on YouTube. However, wouldn’t it help the lawsuit if the counties also claim that underrepresention in the legislature has resulted in a situation that drags them into a conflict between the federal government and the open border loons in the California legislature? (Maybe the point is being argued already but I didn’t see it).
That’s similar to the way West Virginia was created when they chose to rebel against being dragged into the confederacy as part of Virginia. West Virginia is an interesting situation because, a near as I can tell, Virginia never agreed to let West Virginia go (even though consent is required under the constitution).
Every county in California that opposes sanctuary status (especially those who want to be the state of Jefferson) should consider filing an amicus brief in support of the Department of Justice suit against California. If they don’t have the money, then they should set up a fund and solicit contributions. I bet money would pour in.
Conservatives should also consider passing a federal whistleblower law that makes it illegal to penalize anybody for cooperating with federal authorities in immigration enforcement.
Is this more of that Jefferson whatever crap?
No one gives a shit about Jefferson.
I cannot recall the last time I saw a story about this in any mainstream news (outside California).
It is a fringe obsession foisted upon this 'captive' audience at Newstalkers.
I am confident that these 'pawns' waving flags for the state of Jefferson are unaware that this movement's headquarters are in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation.
Putin plays his hands well.