California Legislators Ask To Form 51st State

Republican Jeff Stone is a member of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors and wants to be a citizen of South California, the 51st state. Stone is part of a movement in thirteen conservative counties to cleave off the conservative part of California into its own state. Of course, that could have a wee problem under the United States Constitution without congressional consent.

Advocates argue that California is simply too big to govern, though many suspect conservatives are tired off being tied to the liberal areas of the state. That was the view of the spokesman for Governor Jerry Brown, Gil Duran, who advised “If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there’s a place called Arizona.”

South California would include Orange and San Diego counties as well as Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, Riverside, San Bernardino and Tulare counties. That would be a state of 13 million people.

Article IV, Section Three of the United States Constitution states in pertinent part:

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.

I wouldn’t start making those South California license plates just yet . . .

Source: LA Times

Jonathan Turley