New Californians Declare Independence from Rest of State

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That's not a sensational headline. People in California have been taking action along these lines for years. The newest iteration of the group bidding for independence has a Facebook page on which is this mission statement post: "New California is a new state in development by egregiously aggrieved Californians exercising our Constitutional right to form a new state separate from the tyranny and lawlessness of the state of California..."

Basically, more rural counties want freedom from a "tyrannical government". This isn't surprising. The centralization of power has always led to conflicts between the cosmopolitan powerhouses of the time and the food and industry producing country-folk. This dichotomy is the firmament on which the American Civil War was fought and continues to be a real political issue, to this day.

So where does this eventually end up? Well, frankly, no where at all, legally speaking. The public "declaration" is really just a Facebook page, for now.

However, earlier action from a venture capitalist named Timothy Draper would split California into three parts as pictured below. First, Draper would need 365,880 signatures from registered voters in just 180 days, or by April 23, 2018 in order for the project to be admitted to the November 2018 ballot.

Any way you split it, lately Californians have been admitting the shortcomings of the current governmental structure. People need more autonomy in an area as large and diverse as California; the most populous state in the US. With almost 40 million residents and a 2.8 trillion dollar economy, the effects of the decision to create new states or not will be felt across the nation.