Sending ICE to raid workplaces and schools, separating families, and deporting both undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens. Federalizing the National Guard and deploying it to Los Angeles, using military-style force against protesters. Cutting federal funding and withholding aid during the L.A. fires.
These are just some of the federal government’s attacks on California over the past year under President Donald Trump. The administration’s repeated incursions have prompted some Californians to look for ways to resist. While at first this issue seemed poised to cause division in the Democratic Party, the overwhelming success of Proposition 50 in the recent special election reveals that Californians support a more aggressive response to the Trump administration. Now, the question is less about whether or not California should fight back against the federal government and more about how to do so.
Soft secession presents a path forward. The term itself echoes the numerous proposals — over 220 since joining the United States — that Californians have presented to push the state to secede from the union. Yet its actual meaning is less extreme than its name would imply. It refers to noncooperative federalism, a policy of resisting or challenging federal policies. But what exactly would this look like in practice for California?
To begin, the state can leverage its enormous economic clout. California is the fifth largest economy in the world, controlling around 15 percent of the U.S. GDP and paying more than $80 billion in taxes to the federal government than it receives in return. As such, California’s government has the ability to exert financial pressure on the Trump administration while reclaiming control of the state.
One way to use this economic power would be to impose regulatory and economic costs on the rest of the country through measures such as divesting from pro-Trump companies. In fact, this method has been proven to work. Look no further than Texas’ success in disinvesting from BlackRock in order to effectively pressure the company to abandon its “woke” environmental, social, and governance policies.
Just as Texas prompted BlackRock to renounce policies that don’t align with the state’s political agenda, California could demand that companies like Amazon and Meta end their financial backing of the Trump administration. Further, Democratic states like California have the potential to exert far greater pressure than Republican states through this tactic. For example, the 15 blue “trifecta” states (where Democrats control the governor’s seat and both legislative houses) have invested nearly 75 percent more in businesses than the 23 red “trifecta” states.
Along with targeting companies, California could incentivize investment into the state. The state government could offer relocation bonuses to encourage workers to move to California. Similarly, the state could expand tax incentives for companies to draw their employees away from red states and to California.
Beyond exerting financial pressure, California can partake in soft secession by withdrawing from cooperative federalism alliances. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has already threatened to walk away from the National Governors Association alongside Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, in response to Trump’s deployment of troops to their respective states. Moves like this one would help incentivize bipartisan groups such as the NGA to condemn Trump’s actions instead of remaining silent — and therefore complicit.
In tandem with withdrawing from cooperative federalism alliances, California can look to form new alliances, and this is already underway. In response to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., restricting access to vaccines as well as making false claims about lifesaving and essential technology, California recently united with Oregon and Washington to create the West Coast Health Alliance. This alliance will provide unified recommendations regarding immunizations and vaccine safety to residents in an effort to ensure the continued accessibility of public health information in light of misinformation.
Attorneys general across Democratic states, including California, are building their own alliance as well. A coalition of 23 attorneys general are working to coordinate legal responses to the Trump administration by compiling a joint “brief bank” and filing multi-state lawsuits. By joining together on lawsuits, the attorneys general are better equipped to demonstrate the widespread impact of Trump’s policies and thus make the case for solutions at the national level.
In addition to actively resisting the Trump administration, California should ensure its institutions are well-funded, well-supported, and well-equipped to serve citizens in a period of inconsistent federal funding. In July, the Trump administration canceled almost $600 million in research grants for the University of California system, and in August, the administration sent a list of demands to the UC system that included restricting free speech. This loss of funding threatens life-saving research, Medicaid and Medicare for employees, and student financial aid. The state should build alternative infrastructures of support for universities and other institutions to maintain resilience from economic deprivation.
It is important to acknowledge that states have a more limited ability to raise funding than the federal government does, due to the latter’s ability to increase the national deficit. To compensate for a lack of federal support and this drawback, California could increase state taxes to raise funding.
However, there may be other, more palatable approaches. California can take inspiration from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s proposal for the federal government to receive a share of federally-funded universities’ patent revenue. If California is to assume the burden of funding state universities that the federal government was previously responsible for, the state might consider a renegotiation of intellectual property royalties from research. By doing this, California would become more successful in incentivizing public and private funders to compensate for the current lack of federal funding.
When considering these proposals for soft secession, critics may fear that fighting back against the federal government would play into Trump’s goal of provoking the left. However, sitting back and doing nothing is not a viable option. Given the current speed of democratic backsliding, it could be too late to take action in later years. Denial will not end the federal government’s attacks, and seeking to take the moral high ground will not prove successful in discouraging the Trump administration from encroaching upon California’s state rights. The time for bold action is now.
Featured Image Source: Heute
