News
CaliRed (March 7-13)
By Michael Hernandez, 3-8-25
(Editor’s Note: CaliRed is a weekly column posted Fridays on Making California Red by the 2026 elections through reaching Gen Z (ages 13-28), Hispanics, and Christians with biblical traditional values and their pastors.)
REDDING—Siskiyou County rancher Mark Baird, 72, spoke to a crowd of over 50 attendees at the March 6th Shasta County California Republican Assembly (SCRA) general meeting advocating for a four-state split for California.
Baird, a long-time Jefferson State separatist movement leader from Scott Valley, seeks to move forward to separate California into four separate and equal states with a voters’ initiative that states “Government that works best is government which is closest to the people. This ensures that our elected officials follow the will of the people and not their personal agendas, separate from those of the voters who elected them.
“It is mandatory that representation grows to keep pace with a growing population. California is ungovernable in its present form. The time has come to start over. The time has come to form new states from the failed state of California. We deserve states which will ensure liberty and prosperity; safety and security, for ourselves and our posterity.”
Baird’s five points:
- The people of California are denied the liberty guaranteed to them by our founding documents through a system that denies adequate representation due to an unsustainable ratio of a small number of elected legislators to a large population.
- The California Constitution, Article II, Section 1, states: “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require.”
- The California Constitution, Article II, Section 8-a states: “The initiative is the power of the electors to propose statues and amendments to the Constitution and to adopt or reject them.”
- The California Constitution, Article XVIII, Section 3, states: “The electors may amend the Constitution by initiative.”
- Therefore, this initiative proposes an amendment to the California Constitution, as delineated in Article II, Section 1: Article II, Section 8-a; and Article XVIII, Section 3.
Baird’s proposed initiative will split California into four separate states (removing California and adding four new states resulting in a nation comprised of 53 states). The four new states are comprised of the following counties:
Jefferson State (18 Counties): Del Norte, Siskiyou, Modoc, Trinity, Shasta, Lassen, Tehama, Plumas, Glenn, Butte, Sierra, Colusa, Sutter, Yuba, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, and Lake Counties.
(Note: The field of the Jefferson flag is green and The Great Seal of the State of Jefferson is on a yellow circle representing a gold mining pan with two capital black Xs askew of each other known as the “Double Cross.”)
Coastal California (18 Counties): Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Solano, Contra Costa, Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles Counties.
Central California (17 Counties): Stanislaus, Sacramento, Tuolumme, Merced, Mariposa, Madera, Fresno, Tulare, Mono, Kings, Inyo, Kern, San Joaquin, Yolo, Alpine, Amador, and Calaveras Counties.
Eastern California (5 Counties): San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, and Imperial Counties.
The initiative states that a “Yes” vote “indicates a choice to join the new state that will be formed” and a “Yes” vote “from the majority of the citizens in the majority of the counties in any of the individual proposed new states will compel the legislature to enact and the governor to sign the state split legislation.” A “Yes” vote will amend the California Constitution to allow and require a state split.”
“Subsequently, by a special election, each county may vote to join an adjacent new state, provided the state in question is contiguous to the affected county.” After the legislation is passed, “the counties of each new state will be able to select a new name, if they choose, for their new state.” After the formation of a new state, within 90 days, “each state shall form committees to write new constitutions which would be submitted to the United States Congress to satisfy Article IV, Section 4, of the United States Constitution.” Also, “each new state will form Committees of Separation to negotiate the allocation of assets and debt of the former state of California.”
The Sacramento News and Review Archives report there have been some 200 attempts to divide California into two or more states even before California entered the Union in 1850, including one effort that was on the verge of succeeding until the Civil War broke out. The Jefferson separatist movement nearly succeeded in 1941 that was widely reported by Stanton Delaplane, who won a 1942 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the “Mountain Men” rebellion. Yreka was to be the provisional capital in the original 1941 proposal which was supported by Siskiyou State Senator Randolph Collier.
The modern-state of Jefferson movement was born when Baird and about 100 supporters presented the Siskiyou Board of Supervisors their Declaration of Independence which won approval by a 4-1 vote on Sept. 3, 2013.
The Redding City Council (Shasta County) voted to reject participation in the Jefferson Movement in 2013. This secession proposal was joined by the Modoc County Board of Supervisors (Sept. 24), the Glenn County Board of Supervisors (Jan. 21, 2014), the Yuba County Board of Supervisors (April 15, 2014), the Tehama County Board of Supervisors (based on a June 6, 2014 advisory vote), the Sutter County Board of Supervisors (July 22, 2014), the Lake County Board of Supervisors (March 3, 2015 in a 3-2 split vote) and the Lassen County Board of Supervisors (2015) with voters deciding in 2016.
As of Jan 6, 2016, the Sacramento Bee reported that 21 Northern California counties had sent a notification to the State of California with their intent of leaving the state and forming the State of Jefferson. The population of the 21 counties was 1,747,626 as of the 2010 U.S. Census, which would be the 39th most populous state in the Union.
In the 2016, presidential election, most of the rural California counties which would belong to the State of Jefferson were won by Republican nominee Donald Trump, whereas the losing candidate, Democrat Hillary Clinton, enjoyed support in the rest of California.
The latest secession effort was led by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper in January of 2018 when he collected more than 400,000 valid signatures to split California into three states, qualifying it for the November elections until the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled against it, concluding “that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election.”
The California State Legislative Analyst’s Office had written a 13-page report on secession outlining a wide range of potential problems including “who will pay for and operate public schools, courts, prisons, water, welfare, transportation, parks and state agencies.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sacramento Bee reported the issue of Jefferson’s secession had flared up again with the Shasta County militia calling for secession and armed resistance to COVID-19 regulations.
The New York Times reported that during the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election the counties of a would-be Jefferson overwhelmingly voted in favor of recalling Gavin Newsom with some counties voting 6-1 in favor of the recall.
Mark Baird, the speaker at the SCRA Redding meeting and Jefferson State movement leader is a Christian, husband, father, pilot for World Airways with over 23,000 flight hours and was a helicopter door gunner in Vietnam. He also serves as a Reserve Deputy Sheriff in Siskiyou County and is a Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Posse member and has spent 30 years fighting to maintain water rights and is the Past President of Protect Our Water and former board member of the Siskiyou Water Users Association.
The California Republican Assembly (CRA) has been working to elect Republican candidates who stand resolutely for Republican principles since 1935—it is California’s oldest and most influential Republican volunteer organization. The Shasta County (SCRA) chapter meets the first Thursday of each month at the Shasta Bible College Chapel at 2951 Goodwater Ave., Redding, CA 96002 starting at 6 p.m. For more information contact SCRA President Dominic Santangelo by emailing: [email protected].
Michael Hernandez, is co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service and writes for CitizensJournal.net. He is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor, writer of the weekly column “CaliRed” and edits the weekly “Stories Speak Volumes” and monthly “Election 2026 Countdown.”Mr. Hernandez mentors citizens journalists/podcasters and can be contacted at [email protected].
