The Republican leader of the California Assembly says he will be presenting a resolution to split the state into two distinct parts.
State Assemblymember James Gallagher (East Nicolaus) intends to hold a press conference Wednesday to present the plan, which he says is in response to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to redraw the state’s congressional maps.
Gallagher, Republican leader in the State Assembly, will introduce Assembly Joint Resolution 23, which calls for the creation a new U.S. state comprised of 35 inland California counties, including most of Northern California, the Sierra Nevada, Central Valley and Inland Empire.
Calling it a “two-state solution,” Gallagher says the resolution will protect rural voters who he says will be silenced by Newsom’s redistricting plan.
“The people of inland California have been overlooked for too long,” Gallagher said in a news release issued Tuesday.
Gallagher’s proposed second California state would include more than 10 million residents, immediately making it one of the most populous states in the country and irrevocably kneecapping California’s political influence over the nation.
That influence is at the crux of Newsom’s redistricting plan, which is being pushed in response to a similar redistricting plan in Texas that presents the possibility of a tectonic shift in balance of power in Congress.
Gallagher intends to hold a press conference Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. to discuss his plan, with support from other Republican legislators.
The proposed state map includes Los Angeles County’s neighbors, Kern, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, the latter of which has previously toyed with the idea of splitting off from the rest of the state.