I don’t really know what it means that the Riverside County Board of Directors approved a proposal for 13 California counties to secede from the Golden State for more discussion and debate:
The board approved fellow member Jeff Stone’s call for a meeting. The board voted 4-0 under the caveat that no Riverside County staff or funds be used for the meeting, according to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.
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The next meeting is planned for the fall at which officials from around Southern California will discuss their issues with current state politics in a summit. Stone has asked that the 51st state proposal remain as an option if no other solutions could be reached.South California would encompass Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Tulare counties, which have a combined population totaling approximately 13 million people.
The proposed 51st state would be the fifth largest by population, more populous than Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania. South California would take nearly a third of the population away from California, making the Golden State the second-largest state after Texas.
Eleven of the 13 counties in proposed South California traditionally vote Republican, a fact noticed by California Gov. Jerry Brown’s office last week.
“If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there’s a place called Arizona,” Brown spokesman Gil Duran said.
No deal if they don’t take LA county.
That was definitely one of the first things to strike me — a South(ern) California without LA? It’s more Inland California than South California.