News about Independent California and our leadership
Thomas Elias: For every action, says one principle of both physics and politics, there is a reaction. So when President Donald Trump threatened to put conditions on disaster aid in the wake of California’s unprecedented January firestorms, there was a reaction.
Alan Riquelmy: A poll released this month and commissioned by the Independent California Institute — which stated that its first principle is for California to become a “fully functioning sovereign and autonomous nation” — offers some support for secessionists.
According to the poll, 61% of respondents said the state would be better off if it peacefully seceded, and 63% supported using “hardball” tactics to gain autonomy.
Joe Mathews: The flames that leveled Pacific Palisades and Malibu are believed to have started in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, managed by the National Park Service. (That’s you!).
The blaze that turned Altadena to ash burned through the Angeles National Forest, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, which is part of the United States (you again!) Department of Agriculture.
The Independent California Institute released a new poll purporting that more than 60% of Californians agree that they “would be better off California if peacefully seceded from the U.S. at some point in the next 10 years.”
Legendary California reporter Dan Walters covers our poll for CalMatters:
The transcontinental sniping raises an old question: Could California sever ties with the United States and once again become an independent country? The San Diego County-based Independent California Institute thinks so.
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?
Richard Kreitner, author of the book Break It Up, gave ICI a shout-out in his recent newsletter:
A more insightful survey was conducted (also by YouGov) for the Independent California Institute, whose director, Coyote Marin, reached out to me after reading Break It Up. What I like about the ICI is…
Miller argued that in the survey, support for independence was lower than it should be because “polling companies have no idea how to poll the issue of secession or withdrawing from the union.”
To support this argument, Miller referenced a separate YouGov survey conducted in February for the Independent California Institute.
Is it any wonder that a majority of our not-really American state is ready to leave before the Americans kick us out? According to an Independent California Institute poll, 58% of California adults say we’d be better off than we are now if California peacefully became independent — its own country — in the next decade.
68% of Californians believe they would be better off than they are now if the state negotiated for itself a “special autonomous status within the U.S.” and arranged for transfer of almost all federal land and water infrastructure here to state and local governments. More than a supermajority, then, want at least special standing.
