Shasta County supervisors voted 3-2 on Thursday to back a state assembly resolution seeking to divide California's coastal and inland counties into separate states.
Assemblyman James Gallagher from Sutter County sponsored the measure. He said the measure is a response to Proposition 50, which he argues shows how state politics favor coastal priorities over inland communities.
“They don't really care about us, because they don't have to," he said. "At the end of the day, they can pass through whatever policy they want, over our objections, over us being a very strong and loud voice against those things.”
The resolution is unlikely to advance in the Assembly, where Democrats hold a supermajority. But Gallagher said getting counties and local jurisdictions to come together is what's needed to get the state to consider their proposal.
Supervisor Matt Plummer, who voted against the resolution, pointed to a study from San Bernardino finding that Shasta County receives more state tax revenue than average.
“It looks like the conclusion of that report was that both for San Bernardino, but even more so for a place like Shasta County, that it would come at a significant financial disadvantage," said Plummer.
That San Bernardino study followed a local ballot measure asking officials to look into leaving the state of California because it didn't receive its fair share of resources.
The California State Library counts more than 220 proposals to break the state up, more than the number of years the state has existed.
