The Yes California movement holds two core beliefs: 1. California exerts a positive influence on the rest of the world, and 2. California could do more good as an independent country than it is able to do as just a U.S. state. The introduction also states that California has the sixth largest economy in the world and a larger population than Poland. These are just a few of the reasons for which the Yes California movement is pushing for a citizen’s initiative for the 2018 ballot, which if passed, means that California citizens will have the ability to vote to secede from the Union by the Spring of 2019. Yes California cites the United Kingdom’s secession from the European Union as a similar situation and believes they have just as much of a right to secede from the United States as the U.K. had to leave the EU. Personally, I think that the United Kingdom situation is quite different. The United Kingdom has been its own entity for over 300 years, California was an unrecognized state for about 25 days in 1846 and has been a part of the United states ever since.
The Yes California movement has 9 key points as to why they believe it would be best to secede: 1. Peace and Security, 2. Elections and Government, 3. Trade and Regulation, 4. Debt and Taxes, 5. Immigration, 6. Natural Resources, 7. The Environment, 8. Health and Medicine, and 9. Education. After reading through their description of the 9 points, I can see why many Californians have such a strong desire to leave the United States. Where as before looking into their reasons, I thought it ridiculous for them to want to secede. The biggest points that stood out to me were the trade and regulation, debt and taxes, natural resources, and education. As Yes California puts it, The United States government currently holds a “burdensome trade system” that hurts their economy because trade is made difficult and expensive for Californian businesses. As for the debt and taxes, California has been subsidizing the other states at a cost of 10s to 100s of billions of dollars every fiscal year, forcing them to raise taxes in order to support the other states.
Natural resources are quite important to self sustainability, and currently the U.S. government and its agencies hold 46% of California and are using the natural resources to pay of its debt. Yes California wants to take that 46% and use the resources to help their own independent country. California does have some of the best Universities, yet as Yes California claims, their public school system is in shambles. As an independent country, they would be able to have more control over their school system, and hopefully improve it exponentially.
Despite these valid points, I highly doubt that California will be allowed to secede from the Union. I can’t see the United States government stand by while they lose one of the biggest economies in the nation. They may believe they are doing everything legally, which they very well may be doing. Yet if the U.S. government does not want California to secede, it would not be very difficult to step in and stop them. Of course, this is assuming that the vote to secede even passes.