Modoc County Joins Siskiyou in Seeking to Split from California as State of Jefferson

It’s 1941 again in northern California

Siskiyou County, a large jurisdiction in the forested interior of northern California, is as of this week no longer the only county trying to revive an aborted 1941 secession of California–Oregon border regions as a new State of Jefferson.  Siskiyou’s board of supervisors heard a statehood proposal last month (as reported at the time in this blog), which they put to a vote (also reported on in this blog) on September 3rd, coming out 4 to 1 in favor of Siskiyou seceding—by itself as need be—from California.  Last week, I reported here that Jeffersonian separatists were hearing words of support and interest from no fewer than 15 California counties.  Of the original “Jefferson” counties in southern Oregon, only Klamath County, which borders Siskiyou to the north, seemed intrigued.  Tehama County, California, seemed to have the most buzz going, though it was not in the original 1941 borders envisioned for the state and does not border Siskiyou.  (For more detail on the Jefferson movement, read my recent article from this blog.)

However, Modoc County, an original 1941 Jefferson county, promised to put the matter to a vote as well.  They did, and on September 20th voted 4-0 in favor of joining Siskiyou in a State of Jefferson.

And they have their sights set on pulling more counties up onto the bandwagon as well.  On September 24th, Rex Bohn, a district supervisor in Humboldt County, on the coast, an original Jefferson county to Siskiyou’s southwest, told a reporter, “I think this is resonating in some of our more rural counties, like Siskiyou and Modoc.  Maybe this will wake the sleeping giant.”  He added, “If there’s a group of citizens that would like to see this further looked into, I think as elected officials we have to look at everything.”  But he said he feared “taking a bunch of poor counties and forming a poor state.”

Humboldt County—“Home of the Redwoods!” ... and, um, all sorts of vegetation, actually

Modoc is named for a subgroup of Shoshone Indians who fought one of the last Indian wars of the Old West, in the 1870s in the lava beds of what are now Siskiyou and Modoc counties.  The battleground of the Modoc Wars is now the Lava Beds National Monument.  Nor is brutal racism is not merely in the distant past in this tiny scrap of land on the Nevada and Oregon borders: Modoc County was also home to the Tule Lake War Relocation Center, a concentration camp for Japanese-Americans during the Second World War.

From Indian-fighting to Japanese-American internment,
kicking people when they’re down is an old Modoc County tradition.

Mark Baird, of the Jefferson Declaration Committee, said of the Modoc vote, “California is essentially ungovernable in its present size.”  However, Siskiyou and Modoc splitting away won’t make California any more governable, in that view.  They are two of the largest of California’s 58 counties in area, forming just over 10% of the state’s land.  But, with just under 55,000 people, the two counties have less than a fiftieth of 1% of California’s population, which is the most populous of the 50 states.  A separate Jefferson state consisting of Siskiyou and Modoc would rank 42nd in size, between West Virginia and Maryland (assuming Maryland’s five westernmost Appalachian counties do not succeed in forming their own state).  Population-wise, this two-county Jefferson State would rank dead last, at no. 51, behind the current least-populous state, Wyoming.  It wouldn’t be a close 51st either: Wyoming would have 10 times Jefferson’s population.  The Northern Mariana Islands, a United States overseas commonwealth in Micronesia, would be the only U.S. jurisdiction with fewer people, and then only by a few.  Jefferson would also be the state with the fewest counties, beating Delaware, with its three counties, by one.  (Only 48 states have counties: Alaska is divided into boroughs, which are governed very differently, while Louisiana’s counties are called parishes.)

It’s also worth noting that Siskiyou, Modoc, and Humboldt do not have very substantive complaints about being in California other than ideological differences, as rural Republican strongholds in an overwhelmingly liberal Democratic state.  Water is, as always, an issue, but local fears of a looming apocalypse of gun confiscations, gay group marriages, yoga and astrology in the public schools, and shari’a are, to say the least, overstated.  As the 51st state, Jefferson’s main exports would be water, marijuana (especially if Humboldt joined), and ignorance.

[Also, for those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with a forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  Look for it some time in 2013 or 2014.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]

Other California & Oregon Counties May Be Jumping on “State of Jefferson” Bandwagon

The fires of secession lit in California’s remote northern Siskiyou County last month (as first reported in this blog) may be spreading. The county’s board of supervisors voted 4-1 on September 3rd (as reported here) to seek separation from the rest of California as the State of Jefferson, with the idea that other counties in northern California and southern Oregon might join in.  Talk of northern California splitting off, as either the State of Klamath, the State of Siskiyou, or the State of Shasta, dates to the 1850s, but the far more serious State of Jefferson movement in 1941 aimed to create a 49th state out of California’s three northern border counties and a seven-county block in Oregon’s mountainous southwest.  Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor chased Jeffersonian statehood off of people’s priority lists, but some feel it may be time again.  By now, the idea of splitting from ultra-liberal California is a pipe dream not of farmers and loggers, as in earlier eras, but of Republicans of the Tea Party persuasion who have a beef with the state government’s approaches to guns, taxes, and the environment.  California’s usual rural–urban and north–south rifts over water allocation play a role as well.

It took a week or so, but other counties have started chiming in.  To Siskiyou’s east, the board of supervisors in Modoc County, which borders both Nevada and Oregon, plans to vote on secession on September 24th.  Members of the board of commissioners in Klamath County, one of Oregon’s original “Jefferson” counties, said this week that they found the secession idea appealing and would confer with their Siskiyou counterparts this month or next on the subject.  Klamath borders Siskiyou, whose county seat, Yreka, was in 1941 the proposed Jeffersonian state capital.

I’m not sure this metaphor works.  What’s inherently “independent” about toilet paper?
And who wants their T.P. rough anyway?

Then, on September 10th, a member of the public urged the board of supervisors of Tehama County, a large rural jurisdiction to Siskiyou’s south, to consider joining a secessionist State of Jefferson; the citizen, Tom Mohler, promised to begin organizing a petition to that effect.  In fact, a rancher and radio broadcaster in Yreka, Mark Baird, says he has had expressions of support from no fewer than fifteen California counties.

Over the years, proposals for which counties should be in a State of Jefferson have varied.

Most politicians at the state level or higher pooh-pooh the idea as impractical while acknowledging the ideological rift that divides California’s urbanites from the less populous hinterlands.  But Doug LaMalfa, of the United States House of Representatives, told media that if the majority of citizens in the region supported a State of Jefferson then he would too.  He even, who knows how seriously, offered his services as governor.  Rep. LaMalfa represents California’s 1st Congressional Districts, which includes Siskiyou and covers a large inland swath of the state’s northeast, almost to Lake Tahoe.

Governor?

It remains to be seen if Jefferson statehood will catch on as quickly as last month’s secessionist rebellion in northeastern Colorado, where eleven states now plan to include a referendum on the formation of a State of North Colorado or New Colorado on the November ballot.  (See my articles on North Colorado here and here.)  Already, the 2013 Jefferson statehood movement is eclipsing last year’s aims to set up a State of South California, consisting mostly of Republican-dominated areas of rural south and central California, plus, oddly, San Diego (a movement discussed in detail at the time in this blog).  I predict more counties will be lining up to join the movement soon—though perhaps without the original proposed state’s coastal counties, which are a little less rural and isolated now than they were in 1941.

A State of Jefferson flag displayed in the history museum in Klamath County, Oregon

[Also, for those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with a forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  Look for it some time in 2013.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]

Colorado’s Secession Wildfire Spreads to Northern California: Siskiyouans Raise “State of Jefferson” Flag

The push among a handful of northeastern Colorado counties to form a 51st state of the United States at first seemed part of the political silly season, and a tongue-in-cheek redneck riposte to the state’s decriminalization of marijuana last year.  (See a recent report on the statehood movement in this blog.)  But the idea hasn’t gone away, and is even picking up steam—and maybe spreading to other parts of the inland west.

[Note: For North Colorado and 51st-state updates since this article was published, see this recent article.)

Siskiyou County, California

In California’s mountainous north, along the border with Oregon, the board of supervisors for Siskiyou County, northern California’s largest subdivision, apparently considered a resolution on August 13th to secede from California and become a separate state.  The resolution was put forward by an organization called Scott Valley Protect Our Water.

... or 51st ... or 52nd ... ?

As has often been the case in the long history of California partition movements, water resources are the source of political divisions, with rural northerners’ resentment of the thirst of Southern Californian cities being the key grievance.  (See the 1974 film Chinatown for an inkling of how intractably corrupt California’s hydropolitics are.)  However, there are strong hints of Tea Party–style partisanship and red-state-vs.-blue-state animosities here as well—much in the manner of the Republican-driven South California secession movement in the rural high deserts east of San Diego and Los Angeles, as reported on in this blog late last year.  The new Siskiyou resolution cites Second Amendment rights and “property rights violations” (which is Teabonics for “any environmental regulation whatsoever”) along with the usual gripes about diversion of water.  The resolution calls for “a ‘New State’ which represents the needs, provides opportunity, protects the rights, liberties, public health, and safety of the people of the new State of Jefferson.”

Some envision even more counties joining.

“The State of Jefferson”??  Yes, as in Thomas Jefferson, who commissioned the Lewis and Clark expedition more than 200 years ago that brought this corner of the continent into the U.S. fold in the first place.  Students of history will recall that in 1941 the mayor of Port Orford, Oregon, called for four southwestern Oregon counties—Curry, Josephine, Jackson, and Klamath—and the three Californian ones along the border—Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Modoc—to form a new State of Jefferson.  Yreka, the Siskiyou County seat, was to be the capital.  Water was the issue there, mostly.  However, the attack on Pearl Harbor suddenly put secession way far down the local political agenda, behind victory gardens and scanning the coast for Japanese submarines.  In the Tea Party era, the State of Jefferson idea has been revived, and some rural barns in the region sport the large State of Jefferson flag, which has two Xes (see photo at the top of this article) representing city-slickers’ “double-crossing” of rural people and their interests.

On December 6, 1941, the State of Jefferson rebellion was big news.

On December 7, 1941, other matters grabbed headlines, dooming the movement.

Last year, in the largely racially-undertoned backlash to Barack Obama’s reelection, the State of Jefferson was, along with all 50 states, one of the entities demanding secession from the United States in a wave of petitions that filled up the White House’s “We the People” feedback page (as reported at the time in this blog (with a follow-up article as well)).  The only other non-state movement represented by such a petition was the Republic of Molossia, a micronation near Reno, Nevada.

How California might be bifurcated is a parlor game as old as the state itself.  In addition to the State of Jefferson, some have suggested calling a northern entity the State of Klamath, the State of Siskiyou, or—in the days before the Colorado Territory was admitted—the State of Colorado.  (Just to make things more confusing, the Colorado Territory briefly considered calling itself the State of Jefferson upon admission.)

Colorado’s secessionist heartland

Speaking of which: things are moving ahead in the Mountain State as well.  County commissioners in Weld County, where the North Colorado statehood movement began earlier this summer, told media on August 12th that eight counties are solidly on board (many more are interested, including some in Nebraska) and that the envisioned 51st state is to be called New Colorado (slightly less derivative and lame than North Colorado, but it still doesn’t solve the problem of North Carolina already having the postal abbreviation NC).

Weld County is committed to putting secession on the ballot.  And, just to its southeast, Morgan County’s board of commissioners has now set a deadline of August 26th for the gathering of 2,300 signatures—15% of the electorate—to put it on the ballot there as well.  The race has begun!

[You can read more about North Colorado, the State of Jefferson, and many other separatist and new-nation movements, both famous and obscure, in my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this interview for more information on the book.]