Although Puerto Rico has a small independence movement, several states have larger independence movements than Puerto Rico. California is one.
Like Texas, California was briefly a republic. “Briefly” is the right word here: the Republic of California lasted for 25 days.
The grizzly bear flag created for the Republic of California inspired the current California’s state flag. California may be proud of this historical episode, but California also has a modern independence movement. Is Calexit in the offing?
Was California ever an independent nation?
Well, no. While what is now the state of California was part of Mexico, settlers from states and territories of the U.S. were traveling into the land. In the summer of 1846, about 30 settlers in Sonoma declared independence, flew their flag, and took control of the town. They had been willing to use force, but in fact they just sat down with Col. Mariano Vallejo of the Mexican army, shared some brandy, and accepted his surrender. The U.S. Congress had declared war on Mexico about a month earlier, but word hadn’t yet reached Northern California. Vallejo, a major rancher and the founder of Sonoma, actually supported U.S. statehood for California, and became a state senator after California was admitted as a state. Perhaps he saw acceptance of the Bear Flag uprising as a step toward statehood.
There are some countries in the world that are quite small, so the small size of the Republic of California wasn’t what kept it from becoming a country. Rather, it was the fact that it was never recognized as a nation by the other nations of the world. Texas was recognized as a country by the United States, Britain, and France. The Republic of California was never recognized by any countries. If nothing else, it didn’t last long enough to reach that point. The U.S. Army arrived less than a month later. When Vallejo returned to Sonoma, the Bear Flag had been replaced by the U.S. flag.
The settlers involved in the uprising joined the U.S. war effort against Mexico. There is no record of any conflicts between the army and the settlers. Some of these settlers were immigrants from other nations, including Ireland and Germany, and may not have been U.S. citizens, but the situation was too chaotic to require official enlistment of the new volunteers.
Arguments for independence
California is the richest state in the Union. If it were an independent nation, it would have the fourth largest economy in the world, ahead of Japan. California produces enough food for its people, in contrast to Puerto Rico, which imports 85% of its food. California actually produces more than 10% of all the food for the United States as a whole, as well as more than 20% of the agricultural exports of the United States. While it does not currently produce grains and animal feed in sufficient quantities, the new nation could step up this type of production or continue to import these resources.
California is also an unusually liberal state, and many of the residents are unhappy with current changes in federal laws. Many say they think they would be better off in matters like civil rights, immigration law, and other hot-button issues if they were not controlled by the federal government.
Challenges to independence
California’s biggest problem could be water. The enormous agriculture sector in California relies on equally enormous amounts of irrigation, and California does not have enough water to continue growing those crops without its deals with neighboring states. The federal government owns almost half the land in California, and quite a lot of its dams and waterways as well. As an independent nation, California could negotiate arrangements with the United States, but treaties can’t be negotiated before independence, and an independent Republic of California couldn’t expect to return to statehood if they couldn’t come to terms on water.
California also relies heavily on federal funds. The level of income inequality in California is severe. There is a record number of millionaires and billionaires in the Golden State. There are also 187,000 homeless people — far fewer than in New York or Hawaii, but it comes to 24% of all the unhoused people in the nation. 5.51 million Californians receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food assistance, and millions more rely on the federal government for healthcare and education.
About 35% of California’s budget is made up of the $175 billion in federal funds the state receives. When all the grants, government contracts, and so forth are counted, California takes in as much as $600 billion a year from the federal government.
If California lost funding from the U.S. government, adjustments would need to be made. The state already has some tension between the haves and the have-nots, as well as tension between urban and rural communities and Northern and Southern California. As an independent nation, California might find that these differences become more problematic.
Do Californians want independence?
No official referendum has ever taken place, and polls have never shown a majority favoring independence, but the numbers for Calexit are far larger than those for independence in Puerto Rico. The strongest showing for Calexit was in a poll paid for by the Independent California Institute. The poll was conducted after President Trump had sent military forces to Los Angeles against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom. In this poll, 44% of respondents said they would favor independence, while 54% chose statehood. “Not sure” response were eliminated from the tally.
This was a record high for independence, but previous polling has shown that about a quarter of Californians usually come down on the side of independence. Another, more popular option is “special autonomous status.” This is similar to the notion of “enhanced commonwealth” which was a popular aspirational political status quest in Puerto Rico from roughly 1952 until President Obama signed into law the Puerto Rico Oversight and Management Economic Stability Act (“PROMESA”) in 2016, essentially dispelling the myth that Puerto Rico is anything more than a U.S. territory. Just like “enhanced commonwealth,” a “special autonomous status” is likely to be impossible under the U.S. Constitution.
Could California secede?
Like Texas, California’s separatists try to claim that there would be legal workarounds, but the Supreme Court has made decisions clarifying that secession is not a legal option. Texas v. White said that a state could not simply decide to leave, and that it would require a revolution, or consent of all the states. California’s own constitution says California “is an inseparable part of the United States of America.”
It would not be legal for California to secede. Independence has never been a majority position in California, and revolution is probably not in the cards. Puerto Rico, on the other hand, is an unincorporated territory of the United States, and is therefore able to declare independence peacefully, as California cannot. Still, independence has not only never been the majority position in Puerto Rico, but the number of separatists is extremely small relative to the number of people who seek independence in California.
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