Monday, January 18, 2016

Anderson Doesn't Share "California Values", Does Share "Jefferson Values"

These two links tell you a little about the difference between urban California and rural California.  First:
Donald Trump told an audience in Vermont on Jan. 7 that anyone without a gun in a gun-free zone was nothing but “bait” for “sickos.”

Trump won’t have to worry about students or their teachers being "bait" in more than three dozen school districts in America. Guns are not only allowed in class in those school systems -- Trump should be happy to see teachers are being encouraged to come to school with a pistol in their pockets.

These teachers are ready to take down the sickos.

Anderson Union High School District officials in California understand the intent of Senate Bill 707 that Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed into law in December. It is intended to keep concealed weapons out of high school and college campuses.

However, by ignoring the intent, and following the letter of the law, these teachers are not only being allowed to carry guns in their classrooms, they are also being encouraged to pack heat...

Students in Anderson Union High School District in California are not only OK with their teachers carrying guns to class, they told KRCR-TV they felt safer knowing the adults were armed.

Anderson Police Chief Mike Johnson doesn’t get a vote on the school board, so he didn’t share in the decision to arm teachers. But he thinks it is a good idea.
Second:
In Siskiyou County, Calif., the tax base is so small and land area so vast the county’s 44,000 residents have to rely on themselves in an emergency. The county can only afford a slim law-enforcement presence, so if there’s a problem the response time may be "basically never," explains Mark Baird, a rancher and retired deputy sheriff who met with me in a Sacramento coffee shop last Wednesday.

Yet, he pointed out, Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) just announced his support for more expansive gun-control measures. That disconnect between rural residents, who rely on their guns for self protection, and the more urban-oriented priorities at the Capitol, is an example of why he drove to the Capitol this week.

Baird is a leader of the ongoing effort to carve out rural northern California counties (and in past proposals, some southern Oregon counties, also) into the 51st state of Jefferson. The idea got a burst of attention in 2014 when Silicon Valley entrepreneur Tim Draper tried (and failed) to place on the ballot a measure that would break California into six states, one of which would have been called Jefferson.


But while the attention faded away, the Jefferson movement—the continuation of an effort that got its start in the World War II era—has plugged along. Baird was here to present "declarations" from 15 of California’s 58 counties calling for withdrawal from California. The group held a rally on the west steps of the Capitol...

At the Capitol rally, attended by several hundred people, I saw this sign: "Rural areas need proper representation." As one speaker noted, "This is not secession." He then invoked the Federalist papers No. 51, an essay about the proper way to construct a legislature. Baird points to a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case that forced legislatures to base representation solely on population (rather than having Senate seats divvied up by county). In fact, their next step is a federal lawsuit based on these representation issues.

Those counties that would be part of the new state tend to have some of the lowest populations in California. Colusa has around 21,000 people. Sierra has 3,000 and Trinity has nearly 14,000 people. Those are rounding errors in most Southern California cities. Obviously, it’s hard to get much attention to their concerns in a Legislature dominated by representatives from counties with millions of people.

These representation concerns seem authentic. I was driving through Yuba County over the weekend and heard radio ads promoting Jefferson. I’ve seen the Double-X flag (standing for residents having been double-crossed by politicians in Sacramento and Salem) flying all across the north state.
Are you surprised to learn that Anderson is in the would-be state of Jefferson?

5 comments:

  1. We certainly do feel ignored up here. We have a third of the land and 2% of the population. People here feel that nobody remembers that anything north of Sac exists, except for the part where they want all our water.

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  2. I'm a supporter of Jefferson.

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  3. I lived most of my life in Jefferson (both Oregon and California parts). The people in these regions are not served well by their respective state governments, especially since their values are easily railroaded by the big city majority. Most of the Western states have this problem: what Portland urbanites want, all the rest of Oregon gets. What San Francisco and LA want, the people in Yreka get. (Of course, this will mean that the people in Ashland, Oregon are going to squeal loudly about it from their artsy, liberal enclave, but that's representative democracy for you--vote at the ballot box or vote with your feet.)

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  4. This is a national issue. We have far left Chicago that runs the state of Illinois to the detriment of farmers downstate. We have western states that have less population and have to abide by the election results produced when nobody even bothers to visit the state in their zeal to get to California or New York.

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  5. Nobody's in a hurry to get to California, at least in a national race. It's so reliably liberal, why spend any money here? The lib is going to win, no matter what.

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