Yes California | Scenarios and/Numbers

Great Debates
1

So, first and foremost I want to establish that the concept of secession, whether it’s the CSA, Texas, California or Cascadia (traditional Cascadia, or the new one that includes California since Trump’s election), is not one I’m particularly friendly to, as I’m an American first and a Californian second but I wanted to justify an anti-secessionist position without relying on blind patriotism. My normal response to any secessionist talk is immediate dismissal, but this time I wanted to have a reasoned argument.

Leaving aside the likelihood of a shooting war should the measure even make it past the “crazy idealist” stage, I’d like to discuss the pros and cons of a (likely fantastical) scenario where California peacefully secedes (and perhaps takes Oregon and Washington with it).
Looking over the numbers, it looks like California benefits in 3 major ways from its participation in the Union:
–The US military ensures Californian interests worldwide, keeping the ports open and safe and ensuring the goods it ships out arrive at their destination.
–The Colorado river fuels most of southern California, without it the state would wither
–The economy of California is largely dependent upon free trade with the other 49 states. Unless it can negotiate a new NAFTA - unlikely with diminished liberal support in US Congress - its agriculture would suffer horrendously.
On the flipside, CA independence affords certain benefits - especially if it’s part of a greater Oregon+Washington+California movement:
–California gets about $0.78 for each dollar in taxes it spends. Leaving the union while transferring federal income taxes to state would both allow it to retain all federally funded programs, plus bring something on the order of $20 billion in state revenues, which erases the CA deficit. These numbers are similar for the other states.
–CA has no say in elections whatsoever. In general, the majority will not vote for anything republican, even a centrist, ergo the democrats can run anyone and anything and Californians have no choice but to support them. Independence means a chance to update the first-past-the-post-winner-take-all electoral system with something like Single Transferable Vote and a Parliamentary system that would churn out the most preferred candidate rather than the least hated candidate.
–CA and its liberal neighbors would have the freedom to enact gun control, abolish citizens united, and many many other +70% local approval measures that are blocked by the rest of the Union (eg, immigration reform, social security, etc). In general, this would make voters very happy with their government in a time when congress is lucky to get over an 8% approval rating.
CA can also mitigate at least one of the cons above: the “no water no food” argument has already gained traction. Colorado and other states need California’s breadbasket as much as California needs the water. Likely, a deal would be struck for water rights that would be similar to status quo.

Put that way, it does seem like CA would benefit from Secession more than it would lose… but surely I’m overlooking a lot and oversimplifying. We’re also ignoring that the US military would not idly hand over all of its western ports and nuclear bases.

tldr: What would the net effect of CA secession be, with all this in mind? Also, what would change, realistically, for the average Californian? Lets assume a “best case scenario” with Oregon and Washignton joining along with California in a “New Cascadian Republic.”

2

Well, if you’d like a fictional treatment, there’s Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia, but be warned - it’s the West coast taken over by a rough analogue of the Green Party and everything is just super.

3

California is perfectly free to enact electoral reform, including switching to a parliamentary system, without leaving the Union. Even with federal elections they states have surprising leeway. They can allocate their electoral votes anyway they see fit, and there’s no impediment to using instant-runoff voting for Congressional elections (they just can have multi-member Congressional distracts, at not with a change in federal law).

4

It is just a rhetorical question and there is no answer because of that. Once a state is admitted to the union it is in until the the U.S. as a whole folds. There is no way to reverse that. The unpleasantness of the 1860’s made that very clear. It would be a shooting war if there was ever a true rebellion and California would lose. California is resource rich in general but in still in deep debt and has extreme water issues that were only given a temporary reprieve through luck. The whole state (potential nation) would fail within a few years because it is barely governable even as a state.

Texas has a much better claim on succession rights and even that would not work.

5

So, will there be a war of eastern aggression?

6

I wonder how realistic this is. Does anyone know how much of CA’s “taxes it spends” comes from companies that might move their headquarters once CA secedes? I think there are quite a few defense contractors based in the seceding states, that I imagine would move back to America to keep their sweet federal government contracts, and pretty much any company heavily affected by ITAR would have to relocate as well if they wanted to stay in business (SpaceX comes to mind, but I’m sure there are others).

Not to mention the administrative overhead for federal programs that California would have to duplicate if they wanted to maintain something like those federal programs.

7

Let’s say California vote “Out” and Trump say “Ok, fuck you ingrates”.
Then, the eastern areas, mostly red, call Trump saying “we’re Americans, we want to go back”. The California army won’t be able to stop them and 60% of the territory is gone.

…and water, your screwed.

8

Somewhere on these boards I calculated how many nuke plants you’d need to desal all of California’s water needs. Of course, you’d need the uranium. And a bunch of reactors a seismically active area.

Should be fine.

9

That’s a real concern. Any numbers on how much defense spending factors into CA/WA/OR’s GDP?

I don’t have any numbers for this, but yes the overhead would cut into the budget. My understanding, however, is that the federal overhead generally gets passed on to the individual states for most programs - that is, the feds say what has to be done and the states implement it in some manner that meets all the requirements. This costs the feds very little, besides verifying that yes the implementation is suitable and throwing money at it.

I’m out of my depth on that, so I can’t say either way.

Maybe. But this is another advantage of STV/MMD. They would have much greater representation in CA over the US. In status quo, they have very little say in the state legislature because again, FPTPWTA is really bad for the minority vote. Also, those districts are not 100% red, red just has a majority.

They might want to stick it to those darn urban kids, or they might realize that they’d have a hell of a lot more say in a “free” CA than they would with either status quo or readmission to the union. Assuming, of course, there’s electoral reform. It’s all moot if CA went with FPTPWTA.

edit: Board ate a huge reply talking about (and explaining my use of FPTPWTA vs STV/MMD… and it’s 4:00 AM so I’m not rewriting it now.

Edit 2: It’s late. And I use way too many tabs:

That’s probably one of the biggest flaws in our voting system. By aggregating districts, slight edges don’t overwhelmingly effect outcomes. At present, a party with 51% of the vote in every district means 49% of voters are irrelevant. The combination of Single Transferable Vote (“STV”) and multi-member districts (“MMD,” meaning fewer, much larger districts that send the same number of representatives as the districts they are comprised of) effectively obliterates the two party system and gives that 49% representation approximately proportional to their share of the vote. Whoever is best at pleasing the most (that is, compromise between competing parties) wins - and since STV means the most preferable candidates go through without “wasted votes” or “spoilers”… well, it’s a vast improvement.

But that’s just one pro, and unfortunately not one that’s set in stone. Few people are aware of STV or MMD, so a secessionist California wouldn’t necessarily implement it.

10

I don’t have any “numbers”, but here is my “scenario”

California peacefully secedes from the USA.
The USA withdraws all military personnel and materiel from California.
California enacts very liberal immigration laws.
Large numbers of Mexicans migrate to California.
Once they become a majority, the Mexican-Californians vote to re-unify with Mexico.
Non-Mexican Californians find this idea unappealing.
Mexico invades and conquers California.
Non-Mexican Californians complain to the UN about civil rights abuses.
Mexico ignores the UN.
Large numbers of non-Mexican Californians migrate to the USA.

11

I think the biggest problem with California secession would be dividing up the military assets. This is an issue for California and Washington, as neither Oregon nor Jefferson have much military at all.

A surprising percentage of food for the USA is grown in California, we’d need a transition time to allow Midwest farmers to convert their operations from animal fodder to human food. The severe reduction of water resources to California would curtail this food production but not so much as to bring starvation there, Jefferson certainly has enough water to feed the entire West Coast.

Imports from the Pacific Rim nations would be severed, closing off the rail links would force ships through the Panama Canal and I’m not sure it could handle all that additional traffic. This might be offset by California having to play paddy-cake for energy with the other three coastal States (or four if we include British Columbia).

President Moonbeam … yeah … right …

12

To me it rests almost entirely on the trade argument. If the US was going to put tariffs on Cali goods, it may be a bad idea. Though it would allow Cali to become a free trade zone if they wished. Many small countries are free trade friendly because the destructive nature of protectionism is so obvious in small countries. Because Cali is so backward politically, the prospect of a secession there doesn’t excite me too much. It would be very exciting however if Silicon Valley seceded and mimicked Hong Kong.

13

The California consumer base is fairly large already … there’s not much the USA produces that California couldn’t produce herself or just import from Japan, USA tariff-free … I think capital flight is off the table … if anything California would become a capital haven … would Apple Computer keep their cash assets in Bermuda if they could bring it into California without paying Federal taxes?

14

In related news, white middle aged men in the United States really have it rough. Having so much power is really a tremendous burden, and is filled with nothing but downsides.

15

Actually, a lot of rural white, middle aged men really do have it rough. White people aren’t a monolith. Some white, middle aged white men have tremendous power and are doing fantastically. The rest, especially the rural ones? Not so much, really.

As for California, it has virtually no power at all when it comes to elections. It has no say in democratic primaries, as it is one of the last states to hold one and most of the candidates have dropped out by then. It also has virtually no say in the general election, because the right wing candidate is always so unpalatable that whoever is on the left automatically gets the vote - there is no reason whatsoever for a candidate to appeal to Californian voters or address issues unique to them. Just be less right wing than your rival, and you’ve got 55 electoral votes, guaranteed. It’s actually a bad idea for either side to waste time in California. I was shocked Trump bothered.

We also count for, what, 1/5 of a voter due to the “fairness” of the electoral college?

I haven’t seen any good data on this. If anyone has any kind of breakdown of California’s net exports - and the specific contents thereof - I’d love to read it. I just don’t know where to look for good data.

Edit:

imports are harder to pin down though.

16

Doesn’t California decide this? Or are the primary dates set by the national parties?

17

It’s really not hard to do the math. Unsurprisingly, this is a wild exaggeration. California has 12 percent of the voters and 10.2% of the electoral votes, so a Californian vote is worth about 85 percent of the national average.

This is about the same ratio as Texas, Florida, or New York. All the larger states give votes to the very smallest states.

18

The dates for the primary elections are set by the parties themselves. CA is late on the calenday, partly out of tradition.

For the national election, CA could raise its profile significantly (from zero) by switching to proportional allocation of electoral votes. As it is now, neither party has an incentive to spend any time there. If votes were awarded proportionally, then a candidate could conceivably swing some votes her way by campaigning in the state.

19

One subject hasn’t been addressed - what nation would provide recognition and military sponsorship until Westlandia got on it’s feet? History suggests that independence requires a big brother, so to speak, to provide military and economic support against the original parent country coming in and taking occupation with force.

Would it be China? How about Russia? mbh mentions Mexico. Any of these would have serious downstream repercussions on the direction of the new nation.

20

Of course, this would be bad for Democrats, and Democrats control California, so they’ll never do this.