Politics
California’s bold independence move: 2028 ballot approved, costs revealed, and the votes it needs to succeed
Shirley Weber, California Secretary of State, has given approval to a campaign to petition for a vote for Californians to declare independence from the US.

Residents in the state of California could be given the option to vote for independence in 2028 if a campaign to gather signatures gains enough support.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has officially announced that the campaign group CALEXIT can begin collecting signatures as it looks to get its proposition on the 2028 election ballot.
Organisers would need to get at least 546,651 signatures for the independence vote to be included on the ballot. They have proposed the question as: “Should California leave the United States and become a free and independent country?”
The issue of Californian independence is occasionally aired by fringe groups but rarely receives any significant level of support. However the re-election of President Donald Trump last November may have nudged a few more residents in the Democrat-led state towards the independence movement.
Can California declare independence?
Well, yes, the people of California can declare whatever they like. However the US federal government is under absolutely no obligation to heed the demand. Even if the proposal gains enough support to make it onto the ballot - still a long-shot - the results would not be legally binding.
For its part, the CALEXIT campaign has claimed that the state would have expressed a desire to leave the United States if at least 50% of registered California voters cast ballots and at least 55% of responders voted in favour of the proposal. This would constitute “a vote of no confidence in the United States of America” and an “expression of the will of the people of California,” they say.
California is, by some distance, the most populous and the most wealthy state. The International Monetary Fund’s 2023 World Economic Outlook found that California on its own would be the fifth largest national economy in the world, bigger that India and the United Kingdom.
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