Although I agree with them in spirit (as an anarchist I fully support the right to secede) in terms of pragmatism, it’s clearly unconstitutional.

Tell that to Kentucky, Maine, and West Virginia.

It’s not going to happen, but there’s no reason it couldn’t.

Siskyous county which is on the California side of the border (lined with a huge mountain range) is one of the poorest counties in the state and gets very little resource or assistance from the state. It also has a very high percentage of mentally ill. Because of the mountains, it is a easy place to escape from society, which is why many people choose to live there.
The big issue with California will be the water supply. This is the head water for the Sacramento River. Southern California needs this water supply and won’t be willing to pay for it. Because of that resource, I don’t believe the State of Jefferson will ever be a reality without a revolution.

One thing I can say with some certainty is that you could say many states would benefit from being split up in some way. For instance, there’s been talk for years – actually since the beginning of the Republic – of upstate and downstate New York splitting up. And northern and southern Florida have exactly nothing in common.

One of the primary arguments (in Federalist #10) against a purely democratic form of government and in favor of a system of federalism in the argument over the Constitution was that the individual states – as then constituted – were already too large to act as viable democracies with little oversight from a central government. If those states were too large to be viable democracies because of democracy’s poor treatment of faction, imagine how today’s individual states fit within that rubric. Ultimately, I suspect the US would probably be better off if we broke things down into extremely small state-level units as much as possible with the purpose of the federal government limited to protecting the rights of political minorities, safeguarding interstate and international free trade, and defending against foreign attacks….you know, basically what the Constitution (plus the 14th Amendment) actually says. I’d say an ideal state size would be no more than one or two million people (except in the cases of large cities). To promote efficiency of government services, you allow for multi-state compacts and authorities with powers limited to specific provisions of services.

From the article, it sounds like they have a pretty wide range of politics there — but my guess is that it would naturally be a lot more libertarian than either Sacramento or Salem. But they make the point that it’s more about self-determination than tiny government. They want to govern themselves because their needs are less than even an afterthought in their current states.

Just curious, what sort of population are we talking about here, about how many congressional districts would the state of Jefferson get?

I have heard the idea of breaking off the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to make a new state, called Superior (like the Lake). That would be just fine with me (I live in lower Michigan). Let the UPers (pronounced ‘yoopers’) have their own state, they are certainly different from us down here. Although, it would make sense to include the northernmost third of the lower peninsula in Superior as well, but drawing the boundary there would be more difficult than just putting it in the water. If you are wondering about population, I think they would be bigger than Wyoming (but that’s not saying much).

Are there any other portions of states that either want to break off or would make sense to break off? Would it make sense to cut California into a Northern California and Southern California?

Like I said, it would be a good thing to have a few more states.

Out of curiosity, do you know what the politics are like in that area? Are they wanting to create a Galt’s Gulch or a collectivist paradise?