Last year, Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone made national news by calling for the secession of his conservative “South California” from liberal “North California.” The idea is still alive.
Stone, who received support from his fellow board members but no funding from the County, is still working towards a possible secession. A group called California Rebellion has been working to build a coalition to move towards the far-fetched splitting, and so far has attracted the support of 600 people, with 11,000 offering encouragement through Facebook.
The idea is to split a state that Stone sees as too big to govern. Instead, South California – which includes counties from Fresno south, but not Los Angeles – would better represent the interests of the conservative populations inland.
The last straw for Stone came when the state stripped $14 million from new cities in Southern California, leaving them struggling to survive. That state raid, Stone implies, wouldn’t happen under a South California scheme.
The idea of secession has arisen several times through the history of California, with the most recent mention in the 1990s, where one state legislator suggested merging Northern California with Southern Oregon.
Read the full story at the Press Enterprise.