This coming November, voters from one of California’s most populous counties will have the opportunity to vote on whether their county should consider seceding from California.
This week, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors voted 4–0 to add a November 2022 ballot measure that would allow the county to secede from California.
The measure would ask San Bernardino residents: “Do the citizens of San Bernardino County want the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors to study all options to obtain its fair share of state and federal resources, up to and including secession?”
Curt Hagman, the county’s chair supervisor, said during the meeting, “the last line is the most controversial,”
While Hagman called the first portion of the question a “no-brainer,” assuming almost every resident would want to fight for state and federal resources for the county, he also recognized Californians have repeatedly attempted to split up the state as long as it’s existed.
San Bernardino County is the largest county by land size in the contiguous United States at more than 20,000 square miles, making it larger than Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and Rhode Island — combined.
Despite its large size and population of nearly 2.2 million people — making it California’s fifth-most populous county — San Bernardino County spokesman David Wert disclosed that a recent study showed that, in terms of per-capita revenue received from the state and federal governments, San Bernardino County ranks 36th out of 56.
Supervisor Janie Rutherford, listed a catalog of California residents’ daily issues, from high gas prices and burdensome taxes to the growing homelessness crisis flooding the streets, said:
“I was surprised by the idea, and I don’t believe it’s feasible politically or financially to secede from California. However, I absolutely joined with my constituents who have a growing palpable anger about everything.”
She also noted the state’s “ineffective justice system, broken schools, [and] the state’s overreaching counterproductive regulatory schemes, housing and affordability to the ineptness of the state’s preparation for this drought.”
“People pay high taxes, and they do not believe those taxes are coming back to their neighborhoods to address the problems they’re most concerned about,” Rutherford said. “That’s what we heard from our public last week, and there is nothing crazy at all about being angry about those things.”
More from The Daily Wire’s report:
Resident Jose Gonzalez echoed the supervisor’s sentiments during the public comments, saying he doesn’t “like the way things are going here.”
“It feels like our money is not being used … and it’s not helping us,” Gonzalez said. “So, if it’s a better thing to separate from California — a liberal state — then it’s gonna be better cause that money is not coming to our city.”
“We got to do something about it,” he added.
As extreme as a state divorce sounds, constitutional law governs provisions for a state to separate, join, or create a new form either on its own, with a county, or a portion of another state, county officials said.
State or county officials would need approval from all state legislatures involved, followed by Congress, the Senate, and eventually signed off by the President of the United States before secession occurs.
However, if the county goes through the process, the supervisors expressed concerns about declaring independence from California, such as health and social services, funding for schools, and forming its own National Guard.
But considering San Bernardino County holds a population of 2.1 million people and is larger than 16 other states in the Union, the statistic caught the supervisors’ curiosity about how the county could operate as an economy apart from California.
According to Forbes’ “2019 Best Places for Business and Careers” list, Riverside-San Bernardino Metro ranked as 5th for job growth out of 200 locations analyzed. The region was the only California metro area included in the top 10.
The Associated Press reports San Bernardino County has more land than Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and Rhode Island combined.
County supervisors must hold another meeting to vote on the secession measure before its final adoption.
Many Californias are dealing with daily problems, including heavy taxes, the nation’s highest gas prices, and widespread homelessness, added Rutherford.
Sources: DailyWire, Associated Press
