“The history of the present governor and government of California is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,” said Paul Preston, the vice chairman of the New California campaign.
The borders of the proposed state would essentially cordon off much of California’s traditionally conservative interior and far north from the liberal coastal corridor between the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County.
Calls to break up California have been floated repeatedly since the state’s formation in 1850. Perhaps most notably, the State of Jefferson movement has for decades sought a separate state that would fold in parts of northern California and southern Oregon.
The campaigns commonly cite what they see as high taxation, curbs on personal liberty, and a lack of political representation in Sacramento.
But Preston said the New California movement was also animated by growing anger over a state government that has posed as a vanguard of resistance to the Trump administration, especially on the issue of immigration.
“A lot of people have expressed to me that they don’t feel like they’re citizens in their own state any longer,” Preston said in an interview. “There seems to be a replacement psychology going on, to be replacing middle-class citizens with illegal immigrants.”
