Calls to divide California into two states revived after passage of Prop 50

California Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City) is again pushing to split the state into two, re-energized by the recent passage of Proposition 50 (read more here and here).  Gallagher, who recently stepped away from his role as minority leader of the State Assembly, spoke at a meeting of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors on Nov. 6, two days after the election.  Here's a quote from the San Francisco Chronicle coverage of Gallagher's comments indicating that  

the passage of Prop. 50 was a “catalyst” for him to reintroduce a resolution that would form a new state out of multiple dissatisfied California counties. The proposed new 51st American state would sever the entirety of more rural inland California from the coast.

“Let’s not discount ourselves in what this Inland California is actually really capable of,” Gallagher said while speaking at the podium during the board meeting. “... I think we can do it a lot better than the [government] that is currently controlled by the coastal representatives.”

Gallagher, who used to serve on the Sutter County board before he was elected to the state Assembly in 2014, blames coastal cities for taking tax dollars away from inland California –– including the Central Valley, Northern California and the Inland Empire. As a result, Gallagher said from behind the podium on Thursday, issues such as water, wolves, wildfire mitigation, and “skyrocketing utility and gas bills” have been put on the back burner.  

It's interesting that Gallagher is focused on tax dollars going from inland California to the benefit of the coast.  It'd be interesting to see the data on that since most people assume that urban California taxs subsidize rural California.  As I've written recently here, I'm not sure that thinking of who is benefitting from whom in terms of taxes is the most useful frame.  Not all of the benefits urban California gets from rural California--and vice versa--can be reduced to revenue.  

More on gerrymandering and its impact on far nothern California

Several stories have been published about California's Proposition 50, which would permit re-districting immediately, between the decennial censuses.  It's a topic I first blogged about here, in late August.   

The first is Jeanne Kuang's deeply reported story for CalMatters, from mid-September.  

The headline is a telling, "These rural Californians want to secede. Newsom’s maps would pair them with Bay Area liberals."  Here's the lede: 

Over several rivers and through even more woods, flags advocating secession from California flutter above hills dotted with cattle, which outnumber people at least sixfold.

This ranching region with a libertarian streak might have more in common with Texas than the San Francisco Bay Area.

But it’s not Texas. Five hours northeast of Sacramento on an easy day, Modoc County and its roughly 8,500 residents are still — begrudgingly — in California.

And California is dominated by Democrats, who are embroiled in a tit-for-tat redistricting war with the Lone Star State that will likely force conservative Modoc County residents to share a representative in Congress with parts of the Bay Area.

Modoc County and two neighboring red counties would be shifted into a redrawn district that stretches 200 miles west to the Pacific Coast and then south, through redwoods and weed farms, to include some of the state’s wealthiest communities, current Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman’s home in San Rafael and the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, all in uber-liberal Marin County.

“It’s like a smack in the face,” said local rancher Amie Martinez. “How could you put Marin County with Modoc County? It’s just a different perspective.”

* * * 

Though Modoc County supervisors have declared their opposition to Prop. 50, there’s little else locals can do. Registered Republicans are outnumbered by Democrats statewide nearly two-to-one. Rural residents represent an even smaller share of the state’s electorate.

“It’ll be very hard to fight back,” said Tim Babcock, owner of a general store in Lassen County, a similar and neighboring community that’s proposed to be drawn into a different liberal-leaning congressional district. “Unless we split the state. And that’s never going to happen.”

Here are some key quotes highlighting the rural implications of the proposed redistricting.    

County Supervisor Geri Byrne said she knew it was a longshot — but thought, “when’s the last time The New York Times called someone in Modoc County?”

Byrne, who is also chair of the Rural County Representatives of California and of the upcoming National Sheepdog Finals, said the secession resolution was about sending a message.

“It wasn’t conservative-liberal,” [Byrne] said. “It was the urban-rural divide, and that’s what this whole Prop. 50 is about.”  

Even a Democratic resident running a produce pickup center in Alturas observed that her neighbors are “not that Trumpy.” Instead, there’s a pervasive general distrust of politics on any side of the aisle.

* * *

Flourishing wolves are a problem

At the moment, all anyone can talk about is the wolves.

The apex predator returned to California more than a decade ago, a celebrated conservation success story after they were hunted to near-extinction in the western U.S. Now they’re flourishing in the North State — and feeding on cattle, throwing ranching communities on edge. Federally, they’re still listed as an endangered species under the landmark conservation law signed by President Richard Nixon.
Under California rules, ranchers can only use nonlethal methods to deter the wolves, like electrifying fencing or hiring ranch hands to guard their herds at night.

* * * 

Few Republicans in the state and nation understand “public lands districts,” said Modoc County Supervisor Shane Starr, a Republican who used to work in LaMalfa’s office. “Doug’s the closest thing we’ve got.”

“This whole thing with DEI and ‘woke culture’ and stuff,” he said, referring to the diversity and inclusion efforts under attack from the right, “it’s like, yeah, we had a kid who goes to the high school who dyed his hair a certain color. Cool, we don’t care. All of these things going on at the national stage are not based in our reality whatsoever.”

At a cattlemen’s dinner in Alturas one recent evening, Martinez said she once ran into LaMalfa at a local barbecue fundraiser for firefighters and approached him about a proposal to designate parts of northwestern Nevada as protected federal wilderness. Her 700-person town of Cedarville in east Modoc County is 10 minutes from the state line.

Martinez worried about rules that prohibit driving motorized vehicles in wilderness, which she said would discourage the hunters who pass through during deer season and book lodging in town. Even though the proposal was in Nevada, LaMalfa sent staff, including Starr, to meetings to raise objections on behalf of the small town, she said.

“I know we won’t get that kind of representation from Marin County,” she said.

Reached by phone, Huffman defended his qualifications to represent the region.

Adding Siskiyou, Shasta and Modoc counties would mean many more hours of travel to meet constituents, but Huffman pointed out his district is already huge, covering 350 miles of the North Coast. And it includes many conservative-leaning, forested areas in Trinity and Del Norte counties. A former attorney for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, he’s the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, where [first district congresswoman Doug] LaMalfa also sits.

Then there is this more recent story by Bloomberg's Maxwell Adler, which features the following lede: 

California’s Marin and Modoc counties lie more than 200 miles apart — and several worlds away.

Modoc, tucked into the state’s remote northeast corner, lacks a single traffic light. Many of its 8,500 residents once lost internet service after squirrels chewed through a fiber-optic cable. Ranchers fear wolf attacks on cattle.

Tech-industry wealth, meanwhile, has transformed Marin from a bohemian refuge outside San Francisco into one of California’s richest communities. Traffic regularly jams the freeway into the city, and residents fight over efforts to build more homes.

On the same day, the New York Times published this story about Kevin Kiley, a Republican congressman from greater Sacramento who represents a very rural district stretching down the eastern Sierra.  He would almost certainly lose his seat if redistricting occurs.   

Here's coverage from the California Farm Bureau, "In Rural Districts, Backlash Mounts Against Prop. 50." 

In contrast to these rural-focused stories, Politico published this September 7, 2025 piece  covering the California GOP meeting.  It does not even acknowledge the concern regarding lack of representation of rural concerns.  It includes no use of the word "rural." 

Will proposed California redistricting undermine rural interests?

The answer most folks from rural California would give to this question is "of course."  But I want to look a bit deeper than that in this post and consider how it is that rural interests will lose ground if gerrymandering runs amok in California, depriving rural interests of the representation they currently enjoy in the U.S. Congress.  I'll begin with some of the coverage of the proposed re-districting, coverage that does justice to the rural concern. 

The most comprehensive coverage I've seen was in the Sacramento Bee, where Nicole Nixon and Lia Russell reported from Redding.  The August 22 headline was "What’s in a district? Rural Californians react to Democratic gerrymandering play."  Here's an excerpt that provides the big picture on what's being proposed: 

To help Democrats win, the proposed congressional map would carve up rural Northern California areas — which are heavily represented by Republicans — and put them in bluer urban and suburban districts.

State Sen. Megan Dahle, R-Bieber, called the proposed map “a straightforward attempt to disenfranchise rural voters.”

Dahle represents the North State, with many of the same constituents as LaMalfa. The proposed map creates more compact congressional districts by breaking up large rural ones to include voters in more urban areas. In particular, it would carve up two sweeping districts in Northern California into four new ones, each with an arm stretching to the coast or into Sacramento-area cities, to include higher concentrations of Democratic voters.

“Nobody who claims to represent rural California can support this,” Dahle said.

Newsom’s office declined to comment on the consequences for rural Californians and directed questions to members of the Legislature.

Nixon and Russell also quote Darek Velez, who recently moved to Redding, the county seat of Shasta County and long the largest city in the "north state."  Velez calls himself a centrist. 

Redding is its own area. It’s been fought for. People have a lot of pride in calling it the North State up here.

* * * 

Redding, which often serves as a stopping point for visitors on their way to Mount Shasta and Lassen National Park, would be included in the new second district — a cockeyed gerrymander that would bring conservative corners of the North State together with northern parts of Marin and Sonoma counties, one of the wealthiest and most liberal areas in the state.

The journalists call Velez a "rural resident" (a stretch given the 95,000 population of Redding), and quote him as saying the new maps would take away "rural voters’ 'freedom of speech.'"  Here's a further quote from Velez:  

To change our minds and call (the North State) the mid-state just doesn’t really reflect what everybody wants.  And I think people come up to Redding too from all over the state that like the solitude and what it represents up here. Going to Marin County, like being part of San Francisco, doesn’t make sense.

Nixon and Russell also quote Congressman Doug LaMalfa, who has represented CA-01 since 2013 and whose seat would become more more competitive:

So now, as a Bay Area representative, are you going to care that much that the wolves are devastating the wildlife and the livestock in Modoc and Sierra and Lassen County?  Are they going to care that much? Or are they going to listen to Marin constituents and say, ‘Well, wolves are great. They’re wonderful.’

James Gallagher, Republican Assemblyman from Yuba City and chair of the Republican caucus, has also focused on the consequences of the re-districting for rural Californians.  Indeed, Gallagher has called for a "two-state solution" that would divide California.  

California deploys new plan to prevent wolf attacks in north state

Grey wolves returned to California more than a decade ago, and conflicts between ranchers and wolves are becoming more common, especially in far northern California, where most of the state's wolf packs are.  Jack Dolan of the Los Angeles Times reported in April on wolf attacks on livestock in far northern California here, and a recent story about Shasta County declaring a state of emergency over wolf attacks is here.  (Prior posts about wolves in California are here.)  

Now, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has announced plan to help ranchers, who have lost 58 livestock to wolves in the past year.  Here's an excerpt from Manola Secaira's story for Capital Public Radio: 

The CDFW’s plan, guided by endangered species regulations, currently only allows ranchers to ward off wolves using non-lethal tactics, like making loud noises,shining bright lights or electric fencing. But Weston Roberti and other ranchers say this isn’t working.

* * * 

The state compensates ranchers for proven losses. But Axel Hunnicut, the state’s gray wolf coordinator, says this uncertainty still carries weight for ranchers.

“You could imagine someone wondering, like, ‘Shoot, what is my future?’” Hunnicut says. “Especially when that compensation pot is not well funded.”

And it’s not the only cost. Hunnicut says wolf attacks can stress out cattle. That can lead to weight loss, and fewer calves, which also hurts ranchers’ bottom line.

* * * 

Although ranchers aren’t currently able to harm wolves when scaring them off, that could change. Earlier this year, the state’s conservation plan for gray wolves entered into its second phase. As part of that shift, the state now has the option to allow more aggressive tactics, called “injurious harassment.”

“Injurious harassment means the animal can actually be harmed,” Hunnicut says. “Not harmed to the point that it could be lethal, but harmed in that it would get a negative stimulus.”

He says that could include the use of rubber bullets and bear spray.

Amaroq Weiss, the Center for Biological Diversity’s senior wolf advocate, says she understands the need to move to more aggressive tactics – but only if ranchers have already tried the non-harmful ones.

“For me, what's most important is to first of all, not have that be your first reaction,” she says.

* * *

[California] is home to nearly 40 million people. Kaggie Orrick, a researcher with UC Berkeley’s California Wolf Project, says this makes California a unique case when dealing with wolf conflicts.

“There’s a lot more people here. There’s a different prey base. There’s a lot less open area,” Orrick says. “While we are able to draw support and understanding from other states that do have wolves … California might be a little bit different.”

Since April, four counties in Northern California have declared a state of emergency due to the increasing presence of wolves: Modoc, Sierra, Plumas and Shasta.

Paul Roenn, a supervisor with Sierra County, says some community members have reported seeing wolves walking around outside their homes.

“The interactions have escalated to the point where you can see that it's going to become a public safety issue,” Roen says. “We have to get some expanded deterrence because what we're doing isn't working.”

* * * 

On June 9, the CDFW launched a summer strike team as part of a new pilot effort to curb gray wolf attacks on livestock. The agency says the team will provide round-the-clock aid for ranchers experiencing frequent conflicts with wolves. They’ll also be providing training and help livestock producers create management plans to mitigate future conflicts.

The pilot also allows CDFW staff to use more aggressive tools when handling wolves, like the rubber bullets and bear spray, although these options are still currently unavailable to ranchers.

Here is the Sacramento Bee's coverage of the new CDFW plan.  Read here about how Colorado is dealing with inevitable conflicts between ranchers and wolves.  

On the rehabilitation of wolves, from California to Germany

Wolves have been the subject of about half a dozen blog posts over the years, most recently here and here.  Many of those posts have focused on environmentalists' efforts to save them ranchers' war on them (both the wolves and the environmentalists, that is)  The links between rural folks and these natural predators is thus well-worn territory, so it would seem an oversight not to acknowledge here some recent reporting about the resurgence of wolf populations--in both Europe and the United States.  

The first is this Washington Post story about wolves in Germany.  The dateline is Luneburg Heath, and the headline for the story by Loveday Morris and Kate Brady is, "Wolves, once confined to fairy tales, are back in Germany, stirring debate."   An excerpt follows: 

Virtually extinct in Germany for more than a century, wolves are flourishing here once again — a rare success story in a world of diminishing biodiversity. One factor: German reunification, which extended protections in the former West Germany to the former East. Their numbers have increased more than sixfold in the past decade, with Germany now home to as many as 161 packs, or about 1,300 wolves.

But accompanying their rebound are attacks on livestock — and an emotional debate.

* * * 

The spread of wolves — through Germany and into Belgium, the Netherlands and beyond — has become an issue at the highest levels of the European Union.

* * *  

At a local level, the conflict pits farmers against conservationists. People on both sides have been accused of taking matters into their own hands: Hunting shelters have been burned down and wolves have been illegally shot and dismembered.

The second story, from NPR, does not mention conflict with ranchers but does report on the spread of wolves in California, in the Sequoia National Forest, 200 miles south of where the nearest pack were previously known to be.  

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said Friday the pack was found in Tulare County — the farthest south a pack of wolves has been detected in the state in more than a century.

* * *

CDFW visited the area and found tracks, scat and hair, and their DNA analysis found that all 12 collected samples came from gray wolves. The analysis found the new pack has at least five female wolves not previously detected in California.

Wolves are protected under the Endangered Species Act.  

Postscript:  Here's a story dated Sept. 12, 2023, from WyoFile about how Colorado wolves are getting killed when they wander into Wyoming. 

And here's one from this summer in the Daily Yonder, also out of California. It's about how the State of California is compensating ranchers for living near wolves.  

California's wolf pack another target of misinformation

The New York Times published a story out today under the headline, "Wolves, and Misinformation About Them, Make a California Comeback."  The subhead is, "For the past 10 years, wolves have been steadily returning to the state after being wiped out a century ago. But not everyone is rolling out the welcome mat."  This caption for one of the photos caught my eye as perfect for the blog; it's a quote from a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife:  

Wolves have been politicized because they are right in the middle of this divide between rural and urban.

Here's the story's lede, also featuring the same wolf biologist:   

Kent Laudon, a wolf biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, woke up one morning last year to a flurry of text messages from a rancher in the state’s northernmost county. He was asking about a post with wildly specific details spreading across Facebook that urged people to find a red truck that was transporting breeding wolves along Route 97 into Siskiyou County, Calif. Mr. Laudon was not surprised. This wasn’t the first post of its kind, and it wouldn’t be the last.

“Wolves make people crazy,” he said of these persistent rumors. “And for the record: No, we’re not importing wolves. That never happened.”

Wolves don’t need to be dropped off in California because they are returning on their own.

I guess misinformation is everywhere--and about every topic.  It's not only about a purportedly stolen election and how ivermectin helps cure COVID-19.  It's about wolves, too.  

You can find prior posts about wolves here, and prior posts about Siskiyou County here.  

Little acknowledged in the nation or even the state, far northern California gets a day in the NYT spotlight

Near Plymouth, California, Amador County, July, 2017
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2017

Thomas Fuller reports in today's New York Times about disgruntlement among folks in far northern California--and we're not talking the Bay Area here, folks--where a majority are white, conservative, and voted for Trump (see post about California's rural vote in the 2016 presidential election here).  The headline is "California's Far North Deplores the 'Tyranny' of the Urban Majority." Fuller doesn't lead with the State of Jefferson movement/phenomenon, but he ultimately gets there because secession is one possible "solution" to what ails many in this far flung region of the Golden State.  Read more State of Jefferson coverage here, here, here, here and here.

This key excerpt from Fuller's story provides critical background, especially for non-Californians who think that the greater "Bay Area" is "northern California" (Hint: It's actually central California):

California’s Great Red North is the opposite [of common images/stereotypes of the state], a vast, rural, mountainous tract of pine forests with a political ethos that bears more resemblance to Texas than to Los Angeles. Two-thirds of the north is white, the population is shrinking and the region struggles economically, with median household incomes at $45,000, less than half that of San Francisco.

Fuller acknowledges the "red' and partly rural Central Valley region, too, and then continues with his tale of this little known area:

But perhaps nowhere else in California is the alienation felt more keenly than in the far north, an arresting panorama of fields filled with wildflowers and depopulated one-street towns that have never recovered from the gold rush.

The story features some now-familiar (familiar post-election, that is) information about how rural folks don't feel seen, heard and appreciated.  Many are farmers, and many have been economically displaced by the decline of the timber industry, a phenomenon partly driven by environmentalist concerns.  Fuller quotes James Gallagher, the 3d District Assemblyman:

People up here for a very long time have felt a sense that we don’t matter.  We run this state like it’s one size fits all. You can’t do that.

* * *

In the rural parts of the state we drive more miles, we drive older cars, our economy is an agriculture- and resource-based economy that relies on tractors and trucks.  You can’t move an 80,000-pound load in an electric truck.

Accordingly, a recent rise in the state's gasoline tax will disproportionately hurt rural voters.  

Many point out that if these rural California counties seceded--along with counterparts in Oregon--to form the State of Jefferson, they would only be worse off, however. 

Because incomes are significantly lower than the state average and the region is so thinly populated, tax revenue from the far north is a fraction of what urban areas contribute. In 2014, the 13 northern counties had a combined state income tax assessment of $1 billion, compared with $4 billion from San Francisco County.

Spatial inequality as a function of uneven development is something I've written about here and here.   

Fuller also provides some really useful information I've not seen from another journalist:  he compares the number of folks represented by each Senator and Assemblyperson in the California legislature with the number represented by legislators in other states.  In California, each State Senator represents a million residents, while each North Dakota state senator represents just 16,105, each Wyoming State Senator represents just under 20,000.  Each California Assembly member represents nearly half a million residents, whereas in Vermont it's just 4,174, in New Hampshire, just 3,327.

One of the problems, at least from the perspective of agitators in northern California, is that the number of California legislators has been capped at 120 since 1862.  The legislature has not been able to grow as the state's population has boomed, which has led to a lawsuit by what Fuller calls a "loose coalition of northern activists and residents, including an Indian tribe and the small northern city of Fort Jones," which is asserting a constitutional claim.

A second possible solution is to amend California’s Constitution to change the way state Senate district are drawn.  Rather than base the Senate districts on population, as the current scheme does, "Senate seats would be tied to regions, giving a larger voice to rural areas in the same way the federal Senate does."

I am not very optimistic about the likelihood that either proposal will be adopted, either due to successful lawsuit or constitutional amendment.    

The story closes with some colorful quotes from U.S. Congressman Doug LaMalfa who represents California's 1st District.  LaMalfa is a "farmer/businessman" who lives in Richvale, in Butte County.  LaMalfa decries urban denizens' treatment of rural California as their "park," as well as their desire to save trophy "species."  

You have idealists from the cities who say, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to reintroduce wolves to rural California?’

He counters with a tongue in cheek proposal:

Let’s introduce some wolves into Golden Gate Park and the Santa Monica Pier.

As it happens, I passed the sign in the photo above as I drove through Amador County's wine country yesterday.  That's just about an hour southwest of Sacramento.  State of Jefferson flags and signs are not uncommon in Amador and neighboring El Dorado Counties--though these places are in central California, not the typical State of Jefferson territory.  Yet the State of Jefferson ethos is alive and well here, even amidst pockets of rural gentrification like the Shenandoah Valley wine loop.  Someone put a lot of work into this sign, so I stopped for a photo.  Especially glad now that I did because it's a terrific illustration of just the phenomenon that is the focus of Fuller's story:  the numbers game in relation to how Californians are represented in the state legislature.