California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has approved a campaign to gather signatures petitioning for a vote on whether the Golden State should leave the U.S. and become an independent country.
Newsweek contacted Marcus Evans, who is running the campaign, and the White House for comment via email on Saturday outside regular office hours.
Why It Matters
California is by some margin the wealthiest and most populous state in the union. According to the International Monetary Fund’s 2023 World Economic Outlook, California had the fifth largest economy in the world, placing it behind Japan and ahead of India and the United Kingdom.
Calexit, a group that campaigns for Californian independence, described Trump’s presidential election win in November as “an attack on everything California cares about” and argued that it strengthened the state’s case for secession. In 2024, the Texas Republican Party included in its policy platform a call for a referendum on the state becoming “an independent nation.”
The California state flag in Sausalito on October 24, 2022. The California state flag in Sausalito on October 24, 2022. Justin Sullivan/GETTY
What To Know
On Thursday, Weber announced that the independence petition initiative, which Evans launched from Fresno, could begin collecting signatures.
To have an independence vote included on California’s 2028 election ballot, campaigners must gather 546,651 signatures—constituting 5 percent of the total votes cast for Governor Gavin Newsom in November 2022—and submit them to county elections officials by July 22, 2025.
The question proposed by the campaign is “Should California leave the United States and become a free and independent country?”
According to the campaign, if at least 50 percent of registered Californian voters cast their ballots, and at least 55 percent of participants vote “yes,” it would constitute “a vote of no confidence in the United States of America” and an “expression of the will of the people of California” to become an independent state.
The results of the vote would not be legally binding, and the federal government would be under no obligation to respect its outcome.
The proposal would create a commission to “report on California’s viability as independent country.” It would also provide $10 million as a one-off payment for the commission and election and an additional $2 million from state coffers to run the commission each year.
What People Are Saying
Calexit wrote on its website on November 6: “Californians did not put their full faith and trust behind the Calexit option in 2016. Now it is 2024, and Trump is back, and he will come with even more tools and skill and supporters than last time. Do we need to wait until 2028 to realize that this is the trajectory of the country we share borders with.”
User @iAnonPatriot on X, formerly Twitter, told his more than 450,000 followers on Friday: “Liberals are now pushing for California to become an independent country.”
What Happens Next
The U.S. Constitution does not include a mechanism for state secession. In 1869, following the Civil War, the Supreme Court ruled that the act of admitting a state into the Union was final, with “no place for reconsideration, or revocation except through revolution, or through consent of the states.”
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