A special report by our executive director imagines how California could negotiate special autonomous status within the United States.
Excerpts from the report:
Fully 68% of Californians believe that California would be better off if California negotiated a special autonomous status within the U.S., according to a poll that my think tank, the Independent California Institute, commissioned from YouGov earlier this year…. Why might Californians want more independence from the federal government?
The federal government has so little accountability to California voters that a major presidential candidate can outright declare he’s OK with us dying in a wildfire. It’s nice sometimes to believe that we live under an ingenious federal system devised by wise, benevolent men, but face it, Californians, you’re a second-class citizen in a second-rate democracy.
In short, a Nation-State Caucus could inject a dose of reality into California politics. Rather than selling Californians on “leading the nation” from within a federal system that’s stacked against us in nearly every way, the Nation-State Caucus could focus on doing a better job protecting Californians from that system. Californians should get a chance to lead ourselves before we take on the burden of leading Americans.
