SPECIAL REPORT: How to Achieve Local Autonomy

Photo credit: Ken Lund via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

Fully 68% of Californians believe that California would be better off if California negotiated a special autonomous status within the U.S., according to a poll that my think tank, the Independent California Institute, commissioned from YouGov earlier this year.

Separately, the poll found that 68% of Californians favor transferring nearly all federal land and water infrastructure in California to our state and local government. (It also found 58% of Californians believe we’d be better off if California peacefully seceded from the U.S., but we’ll circle back to that.)

Why might Californians want more independence from the federal government? Probably the best way to explain is a rather puzzling recent news story, wherein presidential candidate Donald Trump threatened to cut off federal wildfire money to California unless our governor agreed to allocate more water to farmers. What? Trump says a lot of things, but we can be pretty sure this threat is credible because he literally tried to do that back when he was President.

I have so many questions, but here are three:

1. Why would a presidential candidate in a close race threaten to deny wildfire protection to their own voters?
2. What does the presidency have to do with wildfires in California?
3. Why would a presidential candidate even get involved in California’s most contentious and enduring issue—how water is allocated?

In this essay, I’ll answer each of these three questions. In each case, you ’ll see that Californians’ relationship with the federal government is less like a partnership or equal participation in a democratic system, and a lot more like paying a mortgage on a house you don’t own.

Then we’ll look into how a more autonomous California would work fiscally. What, for example, would Californians do without federal dollars? I’ll explore some ways Californians might negotiate more autonomy from the federal government.

Finally, I’ll explain what a Nation-State Caucus is, and why forming one would be good for California politics.

Is this how democracy is supposed to work?

Why would a candidate in a close race threaten to abandon potential voters to death in a wildfire? That seems like a surefire way to lose votes (no pun intended). Furthermore, the most wildfire-prone areas tend to lean Republican, so Trump appears to be going after his own voters.

You probably know the answer: the Electoral College. Voters don’t elect the president in the United States; 538 political party loyalists called the electors do. California, like all but two states, uses a winner-take-all system: whichever candidate gets the most votes here gets to choose all of the state’s electors.

In California, Donald Trump is about 30 percentage points behind his opponent, former California Attorney General Kamala Harris. It simply doesn’t matter how many California voters he threatens with incineration, because California has zero impact on whether he gets into the Oval Office.

To put it another way: the American President has tremendous influence over Californians’ lives, but Californians’ individual votes have no influence on who becomes the next President. Is that how democracy is supposed to work?

California voters have another, permanent disadvantage in the federal system: each state gets two senators regardless of population. Which is kind of nuts, considering the smallest 40 states contain less than half of the U.S. population—and none of them is more populous than Los Angeles County. That’s 40 wannabe California counties with a total of 80 senators.

This system is never going to change because voters don’t ratify amendments to the United States Constitution. States do, and each state gets an “equal” vote. Actually, it’s not even up for a vote of states—the Constitution specifically says that even a Constitutional amendment can’t deprive a state of “equal Suffrage in the Senate” without its consent. Yes, Californians get to choose our two senators in a real election where our votes actually count, but jeez, Founding Fathers, it’s pretty insulting to call that “equal Suffrage.”

Federal civics alert: U.S. Supreme Court justices are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Think about how little accountability that process has to California voters, and how much power the Supreme Court wields over Californians’ lives.

So, that’s reason #1 for Californians to want more autonomy: the federal government has so little accountability to California voters that a major presidential candidate can outright declare he’s OK with us dying in a wildfire. It’s nice sometimes to believe that we live under an ingenious federal system devised by wise, benevolent men, but face it, Californians, you’re a second-class citizen in a second-rate democracy.

The National... Wildlife Service?

On to the second question. Why is the federal government involved in fighting California wildfires? Is that a normal government service they provide in all 50 states? Is there, like, the National Weather Service and the National... Wildfire Service?

No. The reason the federal government fights wildfires in California is because the federal government owns 45% of the land in California, including nearly all of our public forest land. Yes, 45%. In contrast, about 2% of Texas is federal land. Heck, only about a quarter of Washington, DC is actually owned by the federal government. Californians like to think of ourselves as citizens of a powerful state with its own sovereignty, but how sovereign can you really be when 45% of your territory is controlled by someone else?

Climate change is only one of two major reasons wildfires have exploded in California in the last decade. The other is a century of mismanagement of federal forest lands, allowing the trees to grow so densely that it’s nearly impossible to stop fires from spreading.

But the federal government pays for their mess, right? Otherwise withholding federal funds wouldn’t be much of a threat. Well, yes and no.

CAL FIRE, California’s wildfire and forest management agency, currently spends about $4 billion a year. In contrast, the federal government spends about $7 billion a year to fight and prevent wildfires in the entire country. Federal firefighters in California are also underpaid: entry level firefighters currently make less than California minimum wage. So federal wildfire aid isn’t exactly the help you might think it is. If a major fire starts on federal land, chances are CAL FIRE and local firefighters are going to be helping put it out. California taxpayers will be paying for it anyway.

That is, if the federal government lets them help. Before the Caldor Fire burned over 200,000 acres of the Sierra Nevada in 2022, it was a 700-acre fire in a canyon. State and local firefighters rushed in to help fight the small fire, knowing that might be their best chance to contain the fire. But the forest service sent the firefighters home, even though their own data predicted the fire would consume most of the community of Grizzly Flats. To this day, former residents of Grizzly Flats are still struggling because the federal government denied them individual assistance, on the grounds that the megafire was not a major disaster.

An American president blocking California’s wildfire funding would be outrageous, but it would also be adding insult to injury. Californians would clearly be better off if most federal public land in California were transferred to state or local control, even if that meant forgoing federal “assistance” in managing that land. We’re not even talking about special autonomous status for California here; just the regular autonomy most states have over their own land would be a huge step forward.

That’s reason #2 for autonomy: there’s no good reason for the federal government to own so much of California, the feds do a bad job of managing their land, and Californians end up paying to clean up those federal messes. They own the house, we pay the mortgage.

California’s own water

Finally, why did Donald Trump demand Governor Newsom change California’s water policy to allocate more money to farmers? What does the U.S. president even have to do with water allocation in California?

Unfortunately, a lot. About half the water Californians use runs through federally owned dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts.

Surprisingly Trump isn’t talking about the Colorado River, California’s one major out-of-state water source. If you live in Southern California, you may have heard “we get half our water from the Colorado river,” which is true if “we” is Los Angeles or parts of Orange County. But when “we” is California as a whole, the Colorado only accounts for about one-eighth of the water we use. The federal government’s ability to mess with California’s water from the Colorado is also pretty limited; California is guaranteed a certain share of water by a century-old interstate compact and other laws of the river.

What Trump is talking about is water that falls on California in the form of rain or snow—California’s own water—and flows into the Central Valley. That water is managed (and allocated) by a patchwork of federal, state, and local water agencies. But all the water that flows out of the Central Valley goes through the San Francisco Bay Delta; if too much water is taken out of the system, the Delta and the species that live there are ecologically screwed.

What this means is if a federal administration decides to position itself as “pro-farmer” and allocate more water to the farmers served by federal water infrastructure, the state of California has to do the opposite—allocating less water to the farmers it serves in order protect the Delta (itself an important agricultural region), which makes those Delta farmers angry at the state government for cutting their water allocation.

State officials have gotten better at fighting these federal shenanigans with litigation and regulations. But those state officials are not asking the bigger question—why is the federal government still involved in California’s water?

Most federal water infrastructure in California was built over 50 years ago. But it’s not like California is getting a gift from the federal taxpayer here. The federal Bureau of Reclamation, which maintains most federal water infrastructure in California, is so good at funding itself that it actually accumulates money over time. One of the main ways the Bureau makes that money is by selling water to Californians. That is, Californians are already paying to maintain the federal dams, reservoirs and aqueducts we use to access California water, but we have no direct say in how that infrastructure is maintained or how the water is allocated.

Now, sometimes the federal government transfers ownership of water infrastructure to state or local government. These are called title transfers. In fact, Californians negotiated one in March 2019. Well, sort of. A federal law authorized transferring the Contra Costa Canal to the Contra Costa Water District, but the actual transfer is expected to take several years. Meanwhile, the Contra Costa Water District’s water users have been literally paying the mortgage on the canal for the last fifty years.

There’s reason #3 for more autonomy: as long as California water infrastructure is in federal hands, federal politicians can hold power over California’s water, even as our state’s water users pay their own way.

The surprising price of paying our own way

If you’re still reading, you’ve probably gleaned that (a) equal representation for Californians in the federal system is hopeless and (b) more autonomy for Californians is actually a pretty great workaround for that serious and intractable problem. But there’s one question we’ve only scratched the surface of: What about the money? Wouldn’t more autonomy come with the price of paying our own way? What would California do without federal dollars?

Surprisingly, California taxpayers already pay our own way. If you haven’t seen the Balance of Payments Portal from the New York-based think tank the Rockefeller Institute, you should definitely check it out. If you do, one thing you’ll notice is that the federal government is at best a break-even proposition for California taxpayers: In 2022, the most recent year for which the portal has data, Californians actually got back 90 cents for every dollar we paid in taxes, whereas our neighbors in Arizona actually got more than $1.50. Californians also paid in more than we got back in 2015 through 2019. During 2020 and 2021, the Covid years, Californians did get a bit more spending than we put into the system, but so did every state in the country.

The Rockefeller Institute’s data only goes back to 2015, but I’ve looked at other data (and gathered some tax data of my own), and California has had a break-even fiscal relationship with the federal government going back to the late 1990s. Put another way, all the “federal dollars” spent in California ultimately came from California taxpayers.

What’s crazy about this is that the federal government borrows billions of dollars each year—the last time the federal government ran a surplus was in 2001. In the long term, federal borrowing only benefits people in other states, who get more than they pay. And yet, Californians are told to think of ourselves as having to shoulder a share of the federal debt. Again, we are paying the mortgage on a house we don’t own.

Californians are told that the way things are is “fair” because Californians are so, so wealthy (never mind that we suffer the highest rate of real poverty in the U.S.). But remember, there’s nothing fair about Californians’ representation in the federal system. Those 80 Senators from those 40 states that are smaller than L.A. County can and do use their outsized political power to route more federal dollars to their own states. If some U.S. congressman gets a little more money for his district because he’s the chair of some House committee, fine, whatever, that’s just politics; we all get roughly equal representation in the House and he’s not going to be chair forever. But when small-state voters use their permanent over-representation in the Senate to siphon money from California taxpayers into their own states, that’s stealing.

Money isn’t the only thing that gets stolen—the federal government also steals the credit. Most of the work of actually running federal programs is done by state and local government.

Go back again to the Balance of Payments Portal, click Per Capita Expenditures & Receipts at the top, and then select California on the right. And then you might notice that the bar for Grants is about as tall as the two bars for Contracts and Wages combined. (You might notice that the bar for Direct Payments dwarfs all the others; more about that in a moment.)

Grants are just money that the federal government hands off to someone else, usually state or local governments. Contracts and Wages represent actual governing on the part of the federal government—the feds can legitimately take credit for running the military (well, except the National Guard) and the Veterans Administration. But nearly everything else they do is just cutting checks and taking credit.

For example, Medi-Cal in California is largely funded (by Californians’ own federal tax dollars) by a federal program called Medicaid. But the federal government doesn’t actually administer Medi-Cal; that’s handled by the state in coordination with county governments. Is it really accurate for Californians to talk about Medi-Cal as a service provided by the federal government, when Californians both pay for and run it?

Finally, what are Direct Payments? That’s when the federal government hands off money to private entities according to a payment system—literally just cutting checks. Think of the Social Security system—the only “governing” involved making sure that the right amount of money gets to the right people.

It's Our Money

Maybe you’ve heard this analogy: you are a woman who works a full-time job, but your husband controls the finances, and gives you a certain budget each month to buy groceries. You think, maybe I’d be happier if I separated from this abusive jerk, but what would I do for grocery money? That would be pretty sad, right? When Californians worry about what they’d do without the federal government grants, we’re thinking in the same sad way.

Here’s the truth.  if California’s state and local governments had to take over some or all of the role of the federal government, we could definitely afford it (because we already pay for it), and we might do a better job of running it (since we’re running most of it already). With a couple of important caveats.

First, as the issuer of the world’s primary reserve currency, the U.S. dollar, the federal government is always going to get a better deal on borrowing money than California will. In the long term, Californians don’t depend on the federal government’s borrowing power, but in the short term, we need ways to get through economic downturns like the Covid Years and the Great Recession. Rather than trying to fake it by issuing state bonds at a much higher interest rate, Californians’ would be smart to maintain a much larger Rainy Day Fund than we do now, so we won’t have to borrow as much in bad times.

Second, if California wants to take over the federal government’s primary business—which is cutting checks—we’d better get a lot better at it. Specifically, the primary business of California’s Employment Development Department (EDD) is also cutting checks, and it historically has not done such a great job. If you want to put a positive spin on it, think of fixing our unemployment system as part of California’s roadmap to greater autonomy.

Baby steps toward autonomy

Still, as 68% of Californians in our poll know, more autonomy for Californians would probably be pretty great for Californians and have a pretty neutral impact on the rest of the country.

Californians’ have already negotiated some special autonomous status for ourselves. We’re the only state that can set our own air quality standards under the federal Clean Air Act. We’re one of the few states that has the right to make compacts with federally recognized tribes around gambling. We’re the only state that appoints the board members of the Independent System Operator that manages our power transmission lines.

But that still leaves California extremely vulnerable to, ahem, changes in federal leadership that our voters have basically no say over. How can we move beyond baby steps and achieve  the level of autonomy that would insulate Californians from the questionable decisions other Americans make for us?

Historically, California’s had an edge in the courts; that’s how we fought off many of the attacks from the first Trump administration. But the U.S. Supreme Court has changed quite a bit since Trump left office, Court has shown itself capable of discarding long-standing precedent like Roe v. Wade and Chevron deference, of handing the President the right to break laws while conducting “core official acts,” and issuing nonsensical decisions that protect gun rights. 

In this hostile environment, Californians can still achieve some things via our state government alone. Our state can backstop federal standards; for example, California can, and has, passed laws to ensure that if the federal government reduces its own water quality standards, California will step in with its own. And because California is the world’s 5th largest economy, sometimes the rules we make for  California’s market have spillover effects for the rest of the U.S. economy\.

But lawsuits and state government actions are only going to get us a little autonomy so far. Say we wanted the federal government to give up its control of water infrastructure in California. We can’t sue them for control. We’d need a plan for managing the infrastructure, and we’d need the federal government to go along with our plan.

What’s our leverage?

We already know that Californians’ votes for Senate barely count and our votes for President count not at all, so what’s our leverage?

The only thing that’s left: the House of Representatives. The House is literally the only part of the U.S. Constitution where power is allocated proportional to population. Californians make up nearly 12% of the population, and—miracle of miracles—we elect nearly 12% of seats in the House. Sure, the House isn’t as powerful as the Senate; it can’t approve judicial appointments, or ratify treaties, but still, new laws can’t be passed without the House’s approval.

Wait—am I suggesting that Californians’ members of Congress threaten to shut down the federal government if our demands for autonomy aren’t met? Wouldn’t that make us the bad guys?

It wouldn't. Remember, this is the system that the Founding Fathers, in their supposedly unquestionable wisdom, created. Under the U.S. Constitution, if a state has a large population and a clear, predictable choice of presidential candidate, then the only real power its voters have is in the House. Californians don’t have some Norman Rockwell-like responsibility to come together with our fellow Americans to decide new laws. All we have a veto power in the House to keep new laws from getting passed, and that power only really comes into focus when a law has to be passed. The Founders even intentionally created a must-pass law for people like us. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution mandates that laws to appropriate funds for the army must expire after two years.

Sure, it’s a terrible system, but, much like the Electoral College and lifetime appointments for federal judges, it’s the system we have. Californians playing hardball in the House is merely American democracy in action, just like the Founding Fathers must have intended.

Also, the federal budget isn’t the only must-pass bill (in fact, “the budget” is often actually several bills passed around the same time). There are a number of federal programs, such as the Farm Bill, that are authorized for limited amounts of time and then come up for renewal.

Some of these programs are, from a Californian point of view, pretty stupid. For example, there is a program called the federal Highway Trust Fund, under which the federal government collects a gas tax and then grants the money to states according to a formula. How does the formula work? Well, a long time ago, the U.S. Senate set up a system where smaller states get quite a bit more transportation money per person than everybody else. Nowadays, the formula largely bases a state’s current share of funding on their past share—a sort of budgetary grandfather law.

Californians’ fiscal relationship with the Highway Trust Fund is much like our relationship with the federal government in general. Californians typically get as much out of the program as we pay into it, while the program itself slowly slips into insolvency. If you look at the raw numbers for California and the highway trust fund, it looks like we’re getting a great deal—48% more in highway spending than we pay in gas taxes! But the program itself spends way more than it takes in. What keeps it afloat are transfers from the general fund, which is to say, our own tax dollars (in this case, mostly income taxes).

So maybe we’re not getting such a good deal after all. But look who is! Alaskans are getting 738% more funding than they paid in gas taxes. Rhode Islanders are getting 277% more. Next comes Vermont (267% more) and Hawaii (217%). Some larger states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts also manage to cash in, but in general, the biggest rates of return go to the states with the smallest populations.

So, for Californians, this transportation program is kind of like making a no-interest loan to a distance acquaintance who pays us back with a gift certificate. Which is silly because, you know what, California’s state government already does? Collect gas taxes and grant transportation money to state and local agencies. You know how much of those state gas tax dollars stay in California? 100%. You know how much Californians have to pay in other taxes to keep this program solvent? Zero.

The saving grace of the Highway Trust Fund program is that it expires. On September 30, 2028, to be exact. If Californians were smart, we’d change our tax laws so that if the program somehow weren’t renewed, our own state gas taxes would rise to replace the federal taxes, and we’d get the full benefit our gas taxes. When the Highway Trust Fund law comes up for renewal, Californians in the House could threaten to shut down the government if we weren’t let out of this nonsense program, so we could decide what to do with our own gas tax dollars.

Also, threatening to shut down the federal government doesn’t necessarily make you the bad guy. Donald Trump has promised, if he becomes the next President, to conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, and there is no real reason to doubt his intentions. This would be a problem for California because more than 2 million Californians are undocumented, most of them people who’ve been in the U.S. for more than ten years. “Problem” is understating it; it would tear the fabric of California’s society apart.

In such a case, Californians would definitely have the moral high ground in threatening a government shutdown. The demand: funding for deportation of, say, people resident in a state for more than three years should be allocated (as Congress does) on a state-by-state basis according to a formula. And said formula should determine that the amount to be spent in California is zero.

Hopefully, that particular scenario won’t come to pass. And ideally, Californians can get more autonomy simply by making a case in good faith. That might be enough for federal land or water infrastructure—California can make a convincing case that we’d be better stewards of federal public land than the federal government. It’s doubtful that Americans outside of California even care about how California’s water infrastructure is managed. But for cases like the Highway Trust Fund, where people in small states are getting a sweet deal at California taxpayers’ expense, we’re more likely to need some real leverage.

Who can make it happen?

Unfortunately, using our veto power in the House effectively isn’t just a matter of pushing for something and letting politics take its course. To execute even the simple plan I’ve outlined with the Highway Trust Fund, we’d have to coordinate our state government and enough of our members of Congress into a bloc strong enough to keep legislation from getting passed until our demands are met. Ideally, we’d find a way to pull Congress members from other states into our bloc as well—California isn’t the only state that’s getting a raw deal here.

Who can do all that? Well, the California Democratic Party, that’s who. (Yes, 12 of California’s 52 representatives are currently Republicans; I’ll get back to that in a moment.) Democracy and self-government ought not to be partisan issues, but the numbers from our poll show that they are, at least when we’re talking about more autonomy for California.

Remember, 68% of Californians overall said that Californians would be better off if California negotiated special autonomous status from the federal government. If you break it down by self-identified Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, the numbers are 84%, 54%, and 47%, respectively. Keep in mind that self-identified Democrats are a near majority of Californians, which is why these numbers add up  to 68%, and why leaving it to one party to organize our entire Congressional delegation to strong-arm some autonomy out of the federal government isn’t a terrible idea.

I want to tell you a funny story about gas taxes that explains why maybe coordinating California’s Republican members of Congress around greater autonomy for California might be a stretch goal. (Yes, it has to do with the Highway Trust Fund. Yes, I promise this is the last you’ll hear about that.)

Remember in 2018 when the state government raised gas taxes to fund transportation infrastructure, and then there was an initiative, Prop 6, to reverse the tax increase? The Prop 6 campaign recognized nine of our Republican congresspeople as “Gas Tax Heroes” for their support of Prop 6. I did a little digging, and found that eight of these nine “heroes” literally voted to renew the federal gas tax that funds the stupid Highway Trust Fund that same year. They weren’t actually against gas taxes; what bothered them was, apparently, Californians taxing ourselves and deciding, for ourselves, how the money should be spent.

According to our poll, there are other sub-groups of Californians who disproportionately support greater autonomy for California: people under 35, people with postgraduate degrees, and, for some reason, Roman Catholics. But if you’re trying to make political change, you probably want to start with a demographic that has something to do with politics. And really, the California Democratic Party would have to be pretty stupid not to listen to 84% of its own members, wouldn’t it?

Injecting a dose of reality into California politics

How do you get the California Democratic Party to organize its politicians around an issue? Put it in the party platform? No, you form a caucus. That way you have a group that includes actual California politicians, state and federal, working together to focus on important issues.

I recommend calling this group the Nation-State caucus, for two reasons. First, because Gavin Newsom used to refer to California that way a lot (as did former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger). Second, because our poll data shows that there’s a strong correlation between thinking it’s accurate to call California a “nation-state” and believing that California would be better off with special autonomous status.

Eventually, such a group could coordinate long-term plans like my plan  getting back control of our gas tax dollars. But the group members  could start small, just by speaking the same truths I have above about how the U.S. Constitution gives Californians second-class representation. Democrats could probably raise even more campaign money if they were honest about how the only way Californians can “vote” for President is by helping campaigns in swing states.

Democrats could point out that much of the “governing” that the federal government does is just sending Californians’ own federal tax dollars back to us. If some idiot tries to give away Californians’ power over our own electric transmission lines in pursuit of “grid regionalization,” the caucus could shout them down (rather than what actually happened, which was Senate leader Toni Atkins quietly killing the bill in the Rules Committee). If the Governor vetoes a bill on the grounds that California doesn’t need to regulate something because we can trust the federal government to do it, they can ask, oh, can we really now?

In short, a Nation-State Caucus could inject a dose of reality into California politics. Rather than selling Californians on “leading the nation” from within a federal system that’s stacked against us in nearly every way, the Nation-State Caucus could focus on doing a better job protecting Californians from that system. Californians should get a chance to lead ourselves before we take on the burden of leading Americans.

And, California politicians, if you must stroke Californians’ egos, keep in mind that there are a lot of countries that are much more receptive to our ideas on climate change than the United States. Why screw around with “leading the nation” when we’re so much more effective at leading the world?

Rebuilding the ship before we launch it

I mentioned at the start of the article that 58% of Californians polled said that they think Californians would be better off if we peacefully seceded from the United States and became our own country—a clear majority, but 10% less than the 68% that endorse special autonomous status.

However, if you look at the 10% of people polled who said yes to autonomy but no to secession, nearly all of them said they believed it’s impossible for a state to secede, even if Congress okays it. Which isn’t to say everyone in this 10% would suddenly change their minds if they just read an article explaining exactly how the U.S. could set a state free, relying on nothing but known precedents in U.S. history and uncontroversial readings of the U.S. Constitution. But just keep in mind, Californians’ desire for independence might run deeper than a rather wonky interest in pursuing special autonomous status.

Why bother with special autonomous status at all? Wouldn’t it be simpler for Californians to just focus on full independence?

No, it wouldn’t, for two important reasons.

First, creating a new country is hard. In his recent book, professor and part-time national secession consultant (yes, this is a real job) Matt Qvortrup likens making a new country to “rebuilding the ship at sea.” Certain essential features of a country, like a military, and diplomatic relations, have to be up and running immediately. The closer California is to a country before it actually becomes one, the less chaotic the process of becoming a country would be.

For example, California definitely has the financial wherewithal to fund its own Social Security system (we’d actually come out billions of dollars ahead each year), and it’s conceptually simple—just collect the taxes and disburse the money. But, like I said above, we might first want California to get better at cutting checks with the programs it already runs, like the unemployment system, before taking over that job for the federal government as well. If you support peaceful secession for California, or you’re secession-curious, think of special autonomous status for California as a way to try it before you buy it.

Second, peaceful secession from the U.S. is something California would have to negotiate with the federal government. Pursuing special autonomous status would give Californians more leverage in those negotiations. Imagine, for a moment, that Californians passed a ballot measure declaring that Californians intend to negotiate peaceful secession from the U.S., in a legal way, consistent with the U.S. Constitution. Regardless of their own opinion on the matter, California public officials would probably feel obligated to start negotiating independence ASAP, on whatever terms they could get. For example, the federal government might say, for example, obviously Californians would have to shoulder our share of the federal debt (Why? We’ve been paying our own way for at least the last 25 years), or that we’d have to buy out federal public land in California (Why? It’s public land. In California). Accepting terms like these would be near-necessary for getting secession done, and it would make a future independent California poorer and weaker as a result.

In contrast, imagine if Californians entered those negotiations having already gained significant autonomy from the federal government. Californians might be a lot less worried about the next time Americans (in swing states) make a wannabe dictator who hates California the next President, or the next time Congress screws up a federal program that California doesn’t even participate in anymore. Californians would have the luxury of a more Canadian attitude towards the U.S. government, if you will. That breathing space would give Californians the leverage to negotiate full independence on our own terms and in our own time—if we want to.

There you have it: the why, the what, and the how of special autonomous status could work for Californians. 68% of Californians aren’t wrong—Californians really would be better off with more autonomy.