This Needs Fixin'

So, California has an independence movement.

I know; this is not a surprise.

(Many states, mostly Republican party strongholds, have California independence movements these days; they love to say they want us out of the Union. We’re one of the political right’s favorite rhetorical punching bags.)

Our local movement hit a major milestone this year: they got an initiative petition into circulation to get the issue onto the 2028 ballot.

California’s initiative requirements are pretty onerous, though; they need registered voters’ signatures amounting to “five percent of the total votes cast for Governor in the November 2022 general election” to get onto the ballot, which comes to 546,651 according to that press release.

That’s a lot.

It’s quite possible that they won’t make it; most initiative movements don’t.

And Calexit don’t appear to have paid signature gatherers outside my grocery store like most initiative movements would have at this point. They do have quite a nice web site, though.

They also don’t have anything like a proposed Constitution or plan for how they envision an Independent California would be organized.

But that’s OK.

Those things need to be created by a much broader portion of the population, and can come later.

The question they’re trying to get onto the ballot is whether California should withdraw from the U.S., not exactly how it should be organized afterwards.

I suspect the past few months will have raised a lot of interest in that.

•