Gavin Newsom Declares California a ‘Nation-State’
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
In fact, California used to have a huge stockpile of medical supplies, put in place by Arnold (a Republican). It was abandoned under the Democratic Governors, and disposed of.
Edit: found the cite
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/coronavi...
If the governor of your state is doing nothing while blaming the federal, that's a problem with your governor. As I said, they have the power to do these things, and the responsibility to.
In what way is this case different?
There are plenty of cases where states have been trying to follow the approach you suggest and have had their orders seized by the federal government. It seems like it's still quite unclear which approach states are supposed to follow so it seems perfectly reasonable for governors to be pointing fingers where the blame lies.
Colorado: https://www.denverpost.com/2020/04/04/coronavirus-colorado-p...
Los Angeles: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-...
New Jersey: https://www.newjerseyhills.com/echoes-sentinel/news/somerset...
Broader piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/politics/coronavirus-f...
You're seeing what's wrong with centralized planning of things that don't need to be centralized.
Procuring masks on the market sure seemed to work out great for states in the earlier days of this incident:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2020/03/30/i-spent...
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1245501506205421570.html
We started out with decentralization and now we've switched to something in between. Neither have worked.
Just like the states, or counties or towns or households...
Except the federal government can order private businesses to manufacture whatever it needs, something no governor can do
The idea the governor of a $222 billion budget can't get some masks made is a bit absurd.
The federal government just passed a $2 trillion stimulus package. And they’re thinking of doing another one.
And in addition to the power to print money, it can also order private industries to manufacture masks, tests, vaccines, ventilators, even tp
And it still can’t get the job done.
There are not enough masks or tests
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/22/21189881/apple-donating-m...
Maybe Tim Cook should run for Governor. Cook knows how to get stuff done, and he has no legal powers whatsoever compared to the Governor.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/ventilato...
It can also order or overpay for the creation of a successful vaccine, but you need data and time to see if it works.
You may wish it were otherwise, but that is not how it is currently set up.
Making paper masks and gowns is not like building an aircraft carrier.
What this also entails is that if there's federal resources, they should be doing everything in their power to secure them too.
I'm totally ok with it, so long as the Federal government remains impotent and balks at California's efforts to manage itself, while simultaneously being run by the party of "states rights." Purely in spite of the lack of leadership and outright derision for our needs as a state, regardless of being home to over a tenth of the population and being our breadbasket and technological power house.
I know not all Californians agree on everything, but I think we can all come together and recognize that we do have to look out for our state as if it was an independent nation these days. Because the Feds aren't going to help us when we need it, just tax us and tell us we can't have proportional representation.
California used to have proportional and geographic representation internally in a bicameral state legislature. Then came the Supreme Court's one man one vote ruling. Now southern California has pure proportional representation and gets all the fresh water it demands from northern California, environmental concerns be damned.
Be careful what you wish for.
And having proportional seating in the House isn't particularly meaningful, when it takes both the Senate and the Presidency to drive policy. Dirt doesn't vote, and frankly I don't see any argument for less than proportional representation that isn't predicated on the notion that some people are more equal than others. Any weighting of the voices can be done in the debate forum, but at the ballot box the only fair way to distribute power is equally. That goes for all levels of our representative democracy.
No system is perfect, it's just about making one that's more perfect. And I would strongly argue that our bicameral government designed by slave owners 250 years ago has both been continuously eroded (they never planned for the Executive and Congress to be in cahoots!), and could be drastically improved by expanding on the 9th/10th amendments and being reformed into a unicameral legislature and abolishing the electoral college.
Consider two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. That's why the Senate exists.
The senate doesn't exist to protect the will of sheep at the hands of wolves. It exists because 250 years ago, the edit: New Jersey delegation wasn't willing to relinquish its equal power at the Constitutional Convention to a state like Virginia. Its never been about sheep and wolves, it's been about the political power of a political class that sought to concentrate as much of it as possible for themselves at the expense of others.
If you want a better way to look at it, it's a dozen wolves convincing a dozen sheep that the wolves should have twice the voting power on dinner because they have a bigger grazing area.
I.e. sheep and wolves.
If there's a proposal that Nevada should be the nuclear dump site of the nation, how would the structure of the house or senate stop that kind of thing? What if Nevada is just a trading item between two powerful parties? What does the constitution even say about this?
Now we are seeing a situation where California flexes its economic capacity during an international emergency. What are other states supposed to do in light of that? It's either a central force steps in to stop logistical contest based on morally and strategically questionable context (which state has more money), or...? What about the structure of congress speaks to this?
What Gavin Newsom is implying here, IMO, is that there's responsibility (and thus power) being left on the table. Due to this vacuum, even Jeff Bezos or Jack Ma could step in. What about the structure of congress speaks to this?
The states with more population have more votes in the House, meaning they are the strong. The Senate stops Florida and California from eating Rhode Island for dinner.
It's not more complicated than that.
> What Gavin Newsom is implying here, IMO, is that there's responsibility (and thus power) being left on the table. Due to this vacuum, even Jeff Bezos or Jack Ma could step in. What about the structure of congress speaks to this?
And how do the delineations of American states align to the delineations of the most salient lines of power in the US, such as money? How does it provide balance?
All states have equal power in the Senate regardless of their population size.
I then talked about a scenario where during an international emergency its money that talks, even Jack Ma's money. What does having equal senate votes matter here?
We seem to be safeguarding some old boundary that fails to negotiate with the real lines of power. Party and Money.
The "at least one" rep has a bigger impact on some of the medium/small size states. My point was more on the senate/electoral college.
Behold, the power.
In my view it's plainly an attempt to scratch an itch to validate our disappointment with the lack of empathy we see in GOP politics; but instead of expressing that, the author stokes hate and "other-ness" and encourages people to interpret words people say as evidence for their visions of extreme separatist versions of the future... which further breads more lack of empathy in others, and the spiral continues.
Fear mongering and visions of separatism exist on both sides of the party lines.
It is ridiculous to have national elections matter so much at the local level and come down to a few counties in a few contested states, remote from the vast majority of citizens.
Edit: It's heartening to see all the principled federalism and subsidiarity here in the HN comments. I'm sure it would be the same if a Democrat were in office and a Republican governer were talking this way, no?
https://www.270towin.com/alternative-electoral-college-alloc...
Probably the simplest/most possible step forward would be to expand the House of Representatives by quite a bit.
If the US was 50 small nations in WWII, Hitler more likely would have won.
The states could be more like that.. a loose federation that only comes together in times of war but other than that the state decides their own constitutions, etc..and have their own presidents/etc..
How could CA accomplish that? I guess we need our own tax collection agency?
Secession is unconstitutional, and no state has a military. In fact, the US military would already be there (and most troops stationed there likely wouldn't be from that state).
I'm going to repeat my point, and try to expand a bit, to maybe make it clearer. To unilaterally change where taxes go, California would have to attempt to withdraw from the United States. There's no other mechanism for a state to directly reduce their federal tax burden.
Sure, people across the country could elect federal officials that were committed to reducing the importance of the federal government, but then it isn't California doing it, it's the whole US doing it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/four-ti...
Rather than a single state attempting to withdraw, it would likely have to be a coalition of states acting upon a unified effort for increased state rights. If representatives in NY/Tri-state, CA, IL, MA, etc. acted in unison, it would likely be more effective.
The pandemic from the start when Trump saying “its only one person, we totally have it in control” to the change of opinions on masks, to the lies really feels like a shit show.
Yet he has massive support. It baffles my mind.
Sure: initially, the US was initially imagined much closer to the current European Union. That was a long time ago: a lot has changed.
> Saying California is a nation-state is perfectly legal and a reasonable position to have.
Not since the civil war it isn't.
And a lot can change again. Last time the lines shifted seriously was the great depression. Seems like crisis is a catalyst for shifts in power structures...
>Not since the civil war it isn't.
Unless trump is planning on arresting governors brown and Newsom, along with dozens of former and current California legislators, this is a toothless threat.
California is a nation state. Think that is treason? Run up. 33.7166357, -118.0594170
And anyway Californians have no group identity beyond the political connection to the state government. They aren't an ethnic group or a religious group or bound by a common culture regardless of the political border. That's the main distinction between a (non-government) "nation" and a (government) "state".
At a practical level, the law is not that which is written down, but what is enforced.
The Confederate states may have had good textual arguments why it was legal for them to secede from the US. However, they were conquered. Their claims were ultimately meaningless because they could not defend themselves.
In the intervening years, the federal government has only gotten stronger. See this [1] discussion of the Little Rock Nine - particularly around the use of the National Guard as an example.
At a practical level, I don't think anything will come of this, but only because California isn't trying to exercise sovereign power.
___
IANAL
I have to imagine it is. The first amendment is quite broad. As long as no one is urging people to take concrete steps (e.g. don't pay federal income tax) I think pretty much anything is on the table.
California has a bigger economy than most countries and that does give them disproportionate clout in terms of shaping federal policy, as well as a ton of responsibilities that smaller states don’t have to deal with to the same degree.
Trends that start in California go nationwide in about 5 years.
So take what Governor Newsom says very seriously - it's a crystal ball.
Historically, the Governor of the State of California also has an outsized shot at being President. Reagan is one example, and the only reason The Terminator didn't run is because of citizenship requirements (he was born in Austria.)
You can bet President Newsom is in our future.
No other political candidate from California has even been nominated. We’ve had seven presidents from Ohio.
Not everyone seeks more power. Maybe Newsom is happy to lead a nation-state without a minority party blocking every initiative he would ever put forward.