A series of events, including the alleged decline of the public school system, lead school administrator Paul Preston to launch a movement in 2005 which seeks to form a new statehood within California.
“I could see the lack of funding and money that was being steered away from public education and, over the years, the system started to decay and collapse on itself educationally,” Preston told the Southern California Record. “This is also happening on a bigger scale. There’s more regulation, more taxation, less responsiveness by the elected officials, and more responsiveness from regional organizations rather than elected officials. Those are some of the big tipping points.”
Instead of relocating to another state, Preston says he founded New California State in 2005.
“Why should I leave,” Preston said. “Why should anybody leave when the state is acting oppressively, which by the way, is unconstitutional. The people are supposed to be in charge of the state, not the state in charge of us. Right now, California state is in charge of the citizens and the citizens are not responding in some fashion to change that. New California is a change agent to form a new state so that we don't have to live under that oppression.”
The group is made up of Californians who have formed a separate government for 20 million citizens out of 40 million statewide but without Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco.
“We were initially contacted before the November 2020 election by six members of the California legislature,” Preston said. “We’ve since expanded our base to eight that are talking to us from the Assembly and Senate. They want a way out for California to save itself from financial problems.”
New California would be different from old California, Preston said, in that it will be based upon a free market economy.
“The solution the founding fathers basically had put in Article Four, Section Three of the U.S. Constitution is an escape valve for citizens when they were in a state that was failing and California is moving into a socialistic economy with excessive taxes, fees, and regulations as opposed to free-market behavior, which is being suppressed and destroyed,” he added.
According to the U.S. Constitution, states may be admitted by Congress into the union but no new States can be formed within the jurisdiction of the state without approval from the state legislature and Congress.
“About 90% of the landmass is New California while Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento would make up old California,” Preston said. “It's a population situation of urban versus rural.”
Some 56 whole or in part counties out of 58 have organized to the point of setting up a bicameral legislature with Senate and House representatives.
“We’ve formed county committees and we declared independence on January 15, 2018,” Preston said. “We've had seven constitutional conventions. We've also passed 26 resolutions and we've created our constitution.”
But final approval from the state legislature and U.S. Congress is required before moving forward.
“We’ve been in negotiations with numerous state legislators who are very excited about this idea because what it does is eliminate the burden of California having to take care of the rural areas,” Preston said.