Calexit Would Be Huge Boon for GOP

The quixotic effort by some Californians to break away from the union and form a progressive paradise suffered a major blow last week when the leader of the project announced he was moving permanently to Russia.

Louis Marinelli, president of the Yes California Independence Campaign, wrote that he would withdraw a petition that had been circulating to put the issue on the ballot in California in 2018. Still, others are picking up the effort to gather the required 585,407 signatures by July.

“That essentially almost dictates that the rest of the country would be [more] Republican.”

If California ever did manage to engineer the so-called “Calexit” — and it would require a lot more than a “yes” vote on a referendum — the result would a huge boon to the Republican Party in the rest of the United States.

According to an analysis by LifeZette, a California-free America would have resulted in a bigger victory for President Donald Trump and padded the GOP’s majorities in both houses.

“That essentially almost dictates that the rest of the country would be [more] Republican,” said Eric Ostermeier, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota.

For starters, rather than losing to Democrat Hillary Clinton by almost 2.9 million votes in the 2016 election, Trump would have defeated her by 1.4 million votes with no California. That likely would have avoided a debate over how many fraudulent ballots may have been cast for the former secretary of state.

“By eliminating California from the overall equation, you no longer have in your quiver that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote,” Ostermeier said. “That would then be wiped out.”

Ostermeier also pointed out that the new America would be far less likely to adopt the reforms that the California independence volunteers are pushing for. For instance, they think they can achieve much more on climate change as an independent country. Without their votes for members of Congress and the president, however, the United States likely would drift away from the climate change regulations they seek, canceling whatever laws they were to pass for California.

Calexit Activists Want Out
Not that the hardcore volunteers care. They have given up on the country.

“It’s not an issue for any of our members,” said Marcus Ruiz Evans, an independence activist from Fresno. “America’s broken … When are we trying to save something that is broke as hell?”

Evans, who had been vice president of Yes California Independence Campaign, withdrew the independence ballot initiative from the secretary of state’s office after Marinelli’s Russia announcement and told reporters he was joining a separate independence group called the California Freedom Coalition.

Prior to the Yes California Independence Campaign blowup, Evans told LifeZette that Californians cannot tolerate Trump’s positions on issues such as trade and gay rights.

Dylan Wiseman, a pro-independence advocate from Sacramento, said California has decided it cannot live with the rest of America.

“But the lesson is we’ve largely been ignored, politically,” he told LifeZette.

Wiseman said he is frustrated that tiny New Hampshire plays an outsized role every four years in determining who will be the nominees for president from the two major parties. He said his home-state senator, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) “hasn’t done anything in decades” because of obstinance from the rest of the country.

California on its own would have the world’s seventh-largest economy — and the rest of America would be worse off, Wiseman said.

[lz_table title=”Calexit Implications” source=”University of Michigan, Population Studies Center”]If California left the union…
|Electoral College
|Election,Trump,Clinton
2016 actual,306,232
2016 without Calif.,343,193
|States Gaining House Seats
|State,Seats
Arizona,2
Arkansas,1
Colorado,1
Delaware,1
Florida,4
Georgia,2
Idaho,1
Illinois,2
Indiana,1
Iowa,1
Kentucky,1
Louisiana,1
Maryland,1
Massachusetts,1
Michigan,1
Mississippi,1
Missouri,1
Montana,1
Nevada,1
New Jersey,2
New York,3
North Carolina,3
Ohio,2
Oklahoma,1
Oregon,1
Pennsylvania,2
South Carolina,1
Tennessee,1
Texas,7
Utah,1
Virginia,2
Washington,1
Wisconsin,1
[/lz_table]

“If we were to leave, everything [in America] would basically come to a grinding halt,” he said. “I don’t know that you could keep the lights on.”

How the Seats Would Fall
Using a reapportionment calculator produced by the University of Michigan’s Population Studies Center, LifeZette determined that if California’s 53 seats in the House of Representatives had been redistributed among the rest of the country based on their population, Trump would have padded his Electoral College victory by an additional 76 votes. Instead of 306-232, it would have been 343-193.

Also, with California out of the union, the U.S. Senate would have 98 instead of 100 members, which would increase the GOP’s current four-seat lead to six.

Figuring out the impact on the House is trickier, since it requires a projection of how new congressional boundaries would be drawn in states that picked up some of California’s 53 seats. In many states, the legislatures and governors draw the lines. Others have non-partisan commissions that do the work. Often, because of disputes that cannot be resolved in the political branches, judges end up drawing the maps.

Given the current makeup of the state legislatures and governors’ mansions, however, it is safe to say that if California formed an independent country today, the GOP would pick up a substantial number of seats across the country.

Republicans currently have a trifecta — control of the governorship and both legislative houses — in 18 states that would gain seats if California left. Democrats have total control in two states. And the parties divide power in 13 states.

That offers a rough guide for how the California-inspired redistricting battles would go. But there are quirks. For instance, although the governor of Iowa is a Republican and the GOP controls both houses of the state legislature, a powerful, independent commission controls redistricting. In such states, LifeZette projects the additional seat could go either way.

In most cases, the same goes for states where the governor is one party and the opposition party controls the legislature. Some states so overwhelmingly lean toward one party, however, that LifeZette tops the scales toward that party even in divided states. For instance, even with input from Republican Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, it is likely the additional seat in the Bay State would go to the Democrats.

[lz_related_box id=”276561″]

Then there is North Carolina. It has a Democratic governor, but under the rules of that state, the governor has no input in redistricting. This, combined with the fact that the GOP-controlled legislature has been aggressive in pushing conservative ideals, means that the three new seats in that state would have a good chance of going Republican.

Texas would be projected to gain a whopping seven seats if California left. With a Republican governor and legislature, it is possible mapmakers would be able to carve out an advantage for the GOP in all of those new seats. Then again, the legislature may decide to play it save and shore up some of the more marginal Republican seats. LifeZette projects Republicans likely would pick up a minimum of four seats in Texas, and perhaps all seven.

Taking current partisan control and the rules of each state into account, LifeZette projects that the Republican majority in the House would be poised to grow by anywhere from 34 to 43 seats.

A majority that big likely would make it easier to tackle controversial items such as repealing Obamacare and reforming the tax code.

Then again, it would add enormously to the cost of Trump’s border wall, since it would have to extend 800 miles north along the California border.