#CALEXIT: Intriguing but won't happen!

Backers of California Seceding From the U.S. Get a Go-Ahead - Group, energized by Donald Trump’s election, can start collecting signatures, but a ‘Calexit’ would require amending the nation’s Constitution

Excerpt:

California secession dreamers can begin collecting signatures to place a nationhood proposal on the November 2018 ballot, after language for the measure was approved this week by the state’s attorney general. The notion of a “Calexit”—a highly improbable idea that would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution—gained popularity on social media following President Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in November, mostly as a humorous expression of opposition to the new president, whose policies are at odds with the liberal state. The measure would strike a line from the state Constitution describing California as “an inseparable part of the United States of America” and set up an election, on March 5, 2019, asking the question, “Should California become a free, sovereign and independent country?”

LATimes Op-Ed 'Calexit' would be a disaster for progressive values

Excerpt:

Imagine if President Trump announced that he wanted to oust California from the United States. If it weren't for us, after all, Trump would have won the popular vote he so lusts after by 1.4 million. Blue America would lose its biggest source of electoral votes in all future elections. The Senate would have two fewer Democrats. The House of Representatives would lose 38 Democrats and just 14 Republicans. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, among the most liberal in the nation, would be changed irrevocably. And the U.S. as a whole would suddenly be a lot less ethnically diverse than it is today. For those reasons, Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Republicans with White House ambitions, opponents of legalizing marijuana, advocates of criminalizing abortion and various white nationalist groups might all conclude –– for different reasons –– that they would benefit politically from a separation, even as liberals and progressives across America would correctly see it as a catastrophe.

Wanna get away? Calexit secession plan possible, but faces huge hurdles

Excerpt:

But the Golden State’s path to independence is blocked with financial and political hurdles, from an expensive state initiative process to persuading two-thirds of Congress to relinquish an economic and tourism powerhouse. Darry Sragow, a longtime Democratic strategist who teaches election law at the University of Southern California, called breaking up the union “an inconceivable thought.” “I don’t see how Californians get to the point where a majority of us want to secede,” Sragow said. “I cannot envision a circumstance under which the rest of the country would even think about this for a nanosecond.”

Comment: Image source . The first article, from the WSJ, may be behind a paywall. The comments section is interesting