California and the West Coast Ain't Seceding

“[The] answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede.”-SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia

I wrote two posts on this blog explaining why the Texas secession talk was just right wing fantasy chatter, and the real costs of what would happen is Texas did go down that secession road.

Now in the wake of Trump's reprehensible election we have California and the west coast of the US talking secession and possibly joining Canada.  

Some Californians are actually taking it a step further.   They are collecting signatures for a ballot question in 2018 that would repeal the part of the California Constitution that states "California is an inseparable part of the United States of America, and the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land." to be followed if successful by a 2019 independence vote.

I'm going to lay out why it isn't going to happen and why #CalExit is a just as bad idea for liberal progressive folks as the #Texit chatter was for the conservafools.

First, let's start with the fact that the 1869 Texas v White Supreme Court case exists.
The SCOTUS ruled the Constitution didn't permit states to unilaterally secede from the Union, and ordinances of secession were absolutely null and void.


Residents of far northern California, southern Arizona, eastern Colorado, and eastern Washington have bumped into when they have proposed to secede from their various existing states and form a new one Article IV, Section 3 of the United States Constitution

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States 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.

So nope, you won't see any more scenarios like West Virginia breaking away from Virginia and forming its own state.

Now, that's the recent history with in-state secession efforts.  Back to the California dreaming of #CalExit

Assuming the ballot initiative votes are successful, it would not only require a constitutional amendment passed by both houses of Congress, but 38 of the states (2/3rds majority)  to say goodbye to California and the rest of the West Coast.

That ain't happening.  Like Texas, major critical military bases are inside the borders of the state of California like Fort Irwin, Camp Pendleton, Vandenberg, March, Travis and Edwards Air Force bases.  The US Navy's 3rd Fleet has a major facility in San Diego.

California also has inside its borders the major ports of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland.  That's before I even start talking about California's agricultural, industrial, technological and natural resources that are vital to the US economy, two international airline gateway hubs and major interstate highways such as I-5, I-8, 1-10, 1-15. and I-80.

California is also if it were an independent nation, the sixth largest economy on the planet.  As much as it would salve the egos of the right wing yahoos to let California go, they aren't for fiscal and military readiness reasons going to do that.

Lets also talk about politics.  California is the flip side of Texas, and notice you aren't hearing any chatter from Texas since November 8 about secession  

California has the largest congressional delegation with 52 seats.  38 of those seats are held by Democrats including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and of the 14 Republicans repping California, one of them is Kevin McCarthy, the House Majority Leader.

Both US senate seats are held by female Democrats in senior senator Dianne Feinstein and newly elected junior senator Kamala Harris, who just replaced the retired Barbara Boxer..  Its 54 electoral votes are also the base electoral vote number for any Democratic Party presidential run..

So just as the Republican Party quietly reminded the Texas yahoos that secession would harm their movement and their chances of getting the White House back, you can bet the national Democratic Party is not liking this news either and will quietly point out a Calexit will do the same damage for our liberal progressive chances at getting the White House and Congress back in 2020.

That's a good enough reason to stick around and use your political and economic clout to help us fight the Trump misadministration tooth and nail.

So nope, as much as some folks in California would probably love to say goodbye to the USA now that Trump is running it, remember that #Calexit is probably not going to happen and political fortunes can swiftly change in four years.

Why Texas Isn't Seceding

“[The] answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede.”-SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia

I know many of you folks who love to bash Texas at every opportunity have heard the repeated cries of Texas Teapublicans to secede from the United States and are loudly egging them on to do so.

And yes, another Texas Republican has called for a secession vote during their upcoming 2016 presidential primary that thankfully failed Saturday.   But let this native Texan point out why secession isn't likely to happen.

Major reason number one is while the idea is popular with the Tea Party ignorati, the national Republican Party doesn't.  75% of reality based Texans oppose it, and especially non white Texans like myself.  

I like being part of the USA.   That way I still get the Social Security benefits I paid into the system for along with  Medicare, Medicaid, and all the other things I'm eligible as an American for.

These Tea Klux Klan clowns probably haven't heard of a 1869 SCOTUS case called Texas v. White which stated the Constitution didn't permit states to unilaterally secede from the Union, and ordinances of secession were absolutely null and void.

Major reason number two and the reason sane Republicans don't like it is because Texas has 38 electoral votes, and serves as the base for Republican presidential candidate electoral vote scenarios like California's 55 electoral votes  does for the Democratic Party presidential candidates in addition to being a political ATM for both parties.

 A Texas secession happens, and the GOP immediately loses those 38 electoral votes and can kiss any chance of regaining the White House goodbye since they have a narrower electoral vote path to the presidency.  There will also be 25 less GOP House seats, 11 less Democrats and two less GOP Senators.

Then there's the other fiscal costs.  An independent Texas would now have to maintain that 3,240 miles of interstate highway that crisscross our state and come up with the funding to do so.

The Republic of Texas would have to set up embassies and consulates in the nations that recognized it, customs facilities in Texas ports and airports, border checkpoints and create a military to defend its long borders with Mexico and the USA. All those nation building tasks cost money.

Other questions that come to mind is what is the Texas share of the US national debt?  What happens with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve locations inside our state's borders?

Naw Tea Klux Klan boo boos, all that military equipment at the current military bases in this state like Ft. Bliss and Ft. Hood for example, would go back to the US or have to be bought from the feds at a steep price.

Teapublicans would also find out the hard way that Texas receives far more in federal money than it sends to the feds, and with the US federal fiscal spigot cut off, the Republic of Texas would have to make up that lost revenue somehow.  So say hello to your taxes going up, paying taxes to the federal government in Austin and not getting the level of services you get now.

Let's be real, much of this racist Texas secession talk has only cropped up because the current POTUS shares my ethnic background, our state since 2009 has had a predominately non-white majority and Latinos will become the Lone Star State's largest ethnic group starting next year.

In the USA, we persons of color at least have a Constitution with some protections of our human rights.  I'm not guaranteed of the same thing in a Teapublican run Republic of Texas.

And yeah, we already tried the independence thing and failed at it, which is why we sought to become a US state in 1845 after a decade of it from Mexico.

That's just the short list of reasons why I don't see a Texas secession happening, and I chuckle when the Texas GOP pushes that non-starter idea.



 

Texas Secede? Yeah, Right

As many of you long time TransGriot readers are aware of I'm a proud fourth generation Texan and native Houstonian. 

I've been amused and concerned to see in the wake of President Obama's overwhelming reelection victory last week pissed off white peepul rioting at the University of Mississippi, letting their inner Klansmen out on Facebook and Twitter, and Republican leaning 'bidnessmen' using the excuse of the Obama victory and expansion of the Democratic Senate majority to lay off workers.   

Now we have so called 'Real Americans' showing their love of this country by sticking petitions on the White House website asking to secede from the United States with the one from my beloved home state getting 80,000 nekulturny people to sign it.

Um people, we're in the middle of observing the 150th anniversary of the War To Perpetuate Slavery (AKA the Civil War) your ancestors jumped off because of that 'states rights' bull feces.  

The question of whether a state could secede or not was not only settled on the battlefield 150 years ago (and y'all lost that war) but was settled by an 1869 US Supreme Court ruling in the Texas v. White case that says no state has the right to unilaterally secede.  

I also find it ironic that the racist failed nation state you continue to romanticize that your ancestors founded that you claim was founded on that 'states rights' principle but was actually of and about perpetuating slavery, was a four year failure in nation building.   The CSA was never recognized by any other world power and hypocritically barred a proposed constitutional provision preserving the right of a state to secede.

So I'm chuckling over this post- election rhetoric from predominately white Texans who were asleep in their Texas history classes wanting to secede and reestablish the Republic of Texas.

If you were paying attention, the Republic of Texas that existed from 1836-1846 and whose capital for two years (1837-1839) was Houston had a tough time fending off Mexican Army and Comanche incursions, and racked up a $10 million debt that the US government agreed to assume once annexation of Texas was complete

So let's get to the real reason why the Tea Klux Klan is pushing this secession talk.   They have like everyone one else who is paying attention to current political developments in the Lone Star State known that Texas has become since 2009 a majority minority state population wise.   The four other majority-minority US states politically have become Democratic in political orientation and the only reason Texas hasn't gone that way is because of the 2003 Delaymandering and the gerrymandering of districts by the GOP legislative majority following the 2010 midterms 

It's inevitable that Texas will once again revert to being a progressive political state, and Republicans have pissed off Latino, African-American and Asian communities to the point that it's just a matter of time before the Texas Republican Party resembles the California one.   

President Obama carried four of the five largest Texas counties population wise in Harris (Houston), Dallas, Travis (Austin), and Bexar (San Antonio).  Tarrant County (Ft. Worth) went to Romney.    In addition to carrying those counties, he carried Jefferson County (Beaumont-Port Arthur), El Paso, heavily Latino South Texas and many of the counties along the Rio Grande.

A blue or even Purple Texas would be a disaster for the Republicans because they heavily rely in their presidential electoral vote calculations of having Texas' 38 electoral votes in their column.   If they were forced to compete for Texas, this state is bigger than France size wise and has expensive media markets in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.

We non Anglo Texans already know what's driving this need to secede.  Racism.  

In addition to the vanillacentric panic in conservacircles over the fact the United States will be a majority-minority population nation by 2050, that reality was driven home by the election of President Obama in 2008 and his reelection to another four year term last week.

Don't think we non-white Texans weren't paying attention when  Hardin County Republican treasurer Peter Morrison (who is also a  Ron Paul supporter) and author of a race-baiting Tea Party newsletter wrote this bigoted drivel:   

"Let each go her own way," Morrison wrote, demanding an "amicable divorce" from the U.S. and from the "maggots" who re-elected President Obama.

And you wonder why I can't stand the Republican Party, Ron Paul supporters, the Tea Klux Klan and libertarians azzholes like him not necessarily in that order and people outside of this state think we're all nekulturny yahoos. .

 more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/11/12/3908795/commentary-politician-wants-texas.html#storylink=cpy

Bottom line is 75% of the 25,145,561 people in this state like being American citizens just fine, and I submit the 13,582,879 of us who aren't Anglo like saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing our national anthem.  We are quite aware that as long as the Stars and Stripes flies on flagpoles throughout the 268,601 square miles of  Texas turf, our human rights are protected under the laws of this country and the United States Constitution.

All bets are off on that in a white dominated Republic of Texas.  

Besides, without Texas as part of the United States, you conservafoools have no chance of ever regaining the White House, so chill with that secession talk.  You also by expressing your racist selves let us know through your actions just how much you really love this country and our state.. 

And yeah, you tried that secession thang already in 1861.  It was a miserable failure.
 

Baja Arizona?

Interesting story coming out of the Grand Canyon State in that there are citizens of it yearning to be freed of the conservafool oppression and ignorance currently emanating from Phoenix.


The folks in Pima County in the southern half of Arizona have had enough of the right wing nuts like Russell Pearce and Governor Jan Brewer that dominate the state's politics.   Momentum is growing for Pima County to secede and become a state called Baja Arizona with Tucson as its capitol in light of the fact the GOP dominated Arizona legislature is cutting public education, proposing nullification and birther laws, and even a bill to designate an official state gun.


Never mind the fact that (ahem) Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is still rehabbing in a Houston hospital after an assassination attempt in Tucson back in January.

Arizona state Senators Paula Aboud (D-Tucson) and Linda Lopez (D-Tucson) , weary of hearing one wingnut proposed law after another proposed a tongue in cheek amendment to attach to a nullification bill that would allow Pima County to secede from Arizona.   It was shot down by the GOP controlled committee, but that was before she discovered there was serious discussion about the idea thanks to Paul Eckerstrom and a group called Start Our State.


Start Our State is now an official PAC and has stated (pun intended) that if other Arizona counties wished to join the movement, they would be welcomed.   

The Baja Arizona secession idea is increasingly gaining traction even in other parts of the state.   Proponents point out that the proposed state has over 1 million residents and at 9000 sq. miles, Pima County is larger than the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, New Hampshire and New Jersey.   

For it to happen, Start our State proponents would have to gather enough signatures to put the question on the 2012 ballot in Pima County.    If successful and the question passes, it would then either have to go to the Arizona legislature or a statewide referendum.   If it successfully got past that hurdle, it would have to be approved by the president and Congress before we'd have to redesign the US flag to add a 51st star.

Other counties that join the movement would have to conduct referendums in their areas before joining. 

As for the name of the new state should it happen, that would also be chosen in a referendum, with the top candidates so far being South Arizona and Baja Arizona.

While the odds of the old Pima County courthouse becoming the new Baja Arizona state capitol building are long, divorces are not uncommon in US history.  Vermont was once part of New York State before declaring its independence in 1777 and eventually getting statehood in 1791 as a result of slaveholding Kentucky entering the Union.   Maine was once an enclaved part of Massachusetts until it gained statehood in 1820 as part of the Missouri Compromise.  The most famous example was the western mountain counties of Virginia breaking away in 1861 to remain in the Union and become the state of West Virginia in 1863.   

This could get interesting.  Arizona is celebrating its centennial as a state next year, but the question that inquiring political minds inside and outside the state are asking themselves are will it still have Pima County as part of the state when it does?