Tomorrow the Riverside County Board of Supervisors will discuss a proposal to hold a summit to consider a plan for the possible secession of 13 counties from the state of California. Yep, it's the slow news days of July and things are getting serious with Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone's idea to turn Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Tulare into the great conservative state of South California. According the Press-Enterprise, "Stone's new state would have no term limits for lawmakers, a part-time legislature and Prop. 13-like controls on property taxes." Right now South California includes about 13 million people in mostly Republican counties (with the exceptions of San Bernardino and Imperial), but the LA Times reports that "he would be amenable to including other counties that might be interested, or even to shifting boundaries radically by cleaving the state between inland and coastal counties." Governor Brown spokesman Gil Duran dignifies the proposal, just barely, with this response: "If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there's a place called Arizona." [Map via Press-Enterprise]
· REGION: Stone proposes secession [Press-Enterprise]
· 'South California' for 51st state? [LAT]
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