Why California Might Need to Flirt with Secession to Reject It Once and for All
Breaking up the Union is harder than you think.
There’s been a recent surge of secession chatter in the Golden State, fueled by fear that a Trump victory in the 2024 presidential election could put liberal California in the crosshairs of a vengeful autocrat.
Whatever your view on the pros and cons of this potential break from the Union, idle speculation is no match for cold and unforgiving reality. Simply put, secession requires more than just wearing a California Republic T-shirt.
As America’s Civil War painfully reminds, secession is fateful, fraught, and full of risk — from economic collapse to armed conflict — not to mention illegal. The Supreme Court ruled in 1869 that no state can leave the Union unilaterally.
Moreover, a constitutional amendment approving a state’s departure from the Union requires the approval of three-fourths of the country’s state legislatures — assent that would likely fail to materialize.
And even without illegality and futility, for secession to succeed, gnarly bureaucratic and conceptual details would need to be considered and overcome.
In short, if Californians were to flirt with a national breakup and contemplate…
