What Is Calexit? About Proposals for California's Seccession

What Is Calexit: The Secession of California?

"Calexit" refers to the concept of the secession of California from the United States, after which it would become an independent country. The word is a portmanteau of "California" and "exit," which is based on similar coinages such as Grexit and Brexit. The term came to the foreground in the wake of Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, in which Hillary Clinton won the state of California with 61% of the vote. However, this was not the first instance in which the idea of state independence had gained attention.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll published in January 2017 showed 32% of Californians supporting Calexit, up from 20% in 2014. Similarly, a Berkeley IGS Poll released in March 2017 found Californians opposed a "Calexit" by more than 2-to-1.

Calexit was spearheaded by Yes California, an independence campaign rooted in the idea that the state paid more in taxes than it received for spending from the federal government. The campaign planned to place an initiative on the 2019 state ballot, which ultimately failed. On September 10, 2020, a new effort to collect petition signatures for California's secession was renewed, though it, too, failed.

Understanding Calexit: The Secession of California

Present-day California formed part of the Mexican province of Alta California until the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in May 1846. The following month, 30 American settlers seized a Mexican garrison in Sonoma and declared an independent republic. An updated form of their flag emblazoned "California Republic" is currently the state's flag. The republic never performed any administrative functions as a government and lasted less than a month before U.S. Navy Lieutenant Joseph Revere landed at Sonoma and raised a Union flag.

Present-day arguments for California sovereignty center on the state's large population and economic power. At $3.64 trillion California's gross domestic product (GDP) was larger than France's ($2.78 trillion) in 2022, the last full year for which data is available. Using World Bank figures, California would be the world's fifth-largest economy between Germany and India, if it were an independent country. According to the Census Bureau, the state was home to 39.2 million people as of the most recent data. Cultural issues, while more muted, have featured in independence rhetoric, particularly as they relate to environmental issues.

Yes California

Yes California was known as Sovereign California until the summer of 2015 when its leaders, New York-born Louis Marinelli and Marcus Ruiz Evans, rebranded the organization as one promoting California's independence. In late 2016, the group submitted an initiative to the California Attorney General calling for an independence referendum in November 2020. After the controversy surrounding Marinelli's residence in Russia while running the Yes California organization, Evans took over as the organization's president.

Yes California summarizes its primary reasons for wanting California to be an independent country with the following three reasons:

1. California is a distinct society with its own unique history and culture.
2. As the world’s fifth-largest economy, California has what it takes to be its own country.
3. The best people to govern California are the people of California.

Statements Supporting Calexit

In a pamphlet posted to its website, Yes California argues that "California could do more good as an independent country than it can do as a just a U.S. state" and enumerates nine areas in which it would supposedly be better off:

• Peace and security: "Not being a part of [the U.S.] will make California a less likely target of retaliation by its enemies."
• Elections and government: "California's electoral votes haven’t affected a presidential election since 1876."
• Trade and regulation: "The United States is dragging California into the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement which conflicts with our values."
• Debt and taxes: "Since 1987, California has been subsidizing the other states at a loss of tens and sometimes hundreds of billions of dollars in a single fiscal year."
• Immigration: "Independence means California will be able to decide what immigration policies make sense for our diverse and unique population, culture, and economy, and that we'll be able to build an immigration system that is consistent with our values."
• Natural resources: "Independence means we will gain control of the 46% of California that is currently owned by the U.S. Government and its agencies."
• The environment: "As long as the other states continue debating whether or not climate change is real, they will continue holding up real efforts to reduce carbon emissions."
• Health and medicine: "California can join the rest of the industrialized world in guaranteeing health care as a universal right for all of our people."
• Education: "We will be able to fully fund public education, rebuild and modernize public schools, and pay public school teachers the salaries they deserve."

Is Secession Legal?

The U.S. Constitution does not directly address the issue of secession; Article IV limits itself to the accession of new states and the division or fusion of existing states. The beginning of the document contains the phrase, "in order to form a more perfect Union," which is often interpreted to mean a "more perfect Union" rather than the "perpetual Union" described in the Articles of Confederation.

There are two major precedents for territorial secession in U.S. history. The first began with the American colonies declaring independence from Britain. The Declaration of Independence frames its arguments in terms of universal rights rather than British law. In practice, the colonies won their independence through war.

The second is the secession of the Southern states in 1861, which sparked the Civil War. The Confederacy was defeated on the battlefield rather than in the courts. However, subsequent legal issues created by attempts at independence led the courts to express an opinion on the legality of secession. In Texas v. White, a dispute over a bond sale by the Confederate States, the Supreme Court ruled in 1869 that Texas' secession had not been legal. According to the majority opinion, entry into the Union formed "an indissoluble relation"; it was "final," "perpetual," and left "no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through the consent of the States."

In other words, the Supreme Court appears to recognize the legitimacy of independence through armed struggle, although that hardly matters; the war's outcome is the deciding factor regardless of a court's opinion.

Current Day Secession

In a blog post from March 2016, Marinelli interpreted the Supreme Court's opinion to mean that California could propose a constitutional amendment allowing it to secede. If that was then approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and ratified by 38 states, California could become independent. Alternatively, he wrote, two-thirds of the delegates of a constitutional convention could approve the amendment, which would then have to be ratified by 38 states.

Whether that interpretation passes legal muster is uncertain. In any case, it is a long shot to get two-thirds of the House and Senate—not to mention legislatures from two-thirds of the states—to agree on anything, particularly the secession of the country's largest state, economically speaking. Many analysts deem California's secession highly improbable.

Giving It a Go

Undaunted, Yes California submitted a proposed ballot measure to the California attorney general's office on November 21, 2016, hoping to get an independent vote on the ballot in 2019. The measure would repeal Article III, Section 1 of California's constitution ("The State of California is an inseparable part of the United States of America, and the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land") and pose the question to voters, "Should California become a free, sovereign, and independent country?" According to the proposed ballot measure, 50% of registered voters will need to turn out for it to be valid, and 55% will have to mark "yes."

Ultimately, the initiative failed. However, on Sept. 10, 2020, Yes California initiated a new effort to collect petition signatures for California's secession, which was approved by the Secretary of State but failed again.

The Bottom Line

"Calexit" refers to the idea of California seceding from the United States and becoming an independent country. There have been hundreds of attempts for California to secede from the United States, all with very little possibility of succeeding. Yes California is only the latest organization to spearhead "Calexit."