SACRAMENTO,
Calif. (AP) — Residents of California's largely rural, agrarian and politically
conservative far northern counties long ago got used to feeling ignored in the
state Capitol and out of sync with major urban areas.
The idea of
forming their own state has been a topic among local secession dreamers for
more than a century. Residents in two counties will have a chance to voice that
sentiment next week.
Voters in Del
Norte and Tehama, with a combined population of about 91,000, will decide June
3 on an advisory measure that asks each county's board of supervisors to join a
wider effort to form a 51st state named Jefferson.
Elected officials in Glenn, Modoc, Siskiyou
and Yuba counties already voted to join the movement. Supervisors in Butte
County will vote June 10, while local bodies in other northern counties are
awaiting the June 3 ballot results before deciding what to do.
A similar but unrelated question on the primary ballot in
Siskiyou County asks voters to rename that county the Republic of Jefferson.
The seven
counties that have voted or will this month have a combined geographic area
twice the size of New Hampshire, with about 467,000 residents.
The terrain
spans some of California's most majestic coastal scenery to
agriculture-dominated valleys, Mount Shasta and Redwood National Park. Some of
its residents are also are among the state's poorest, and the population is far
different from California as a whole.
While the state has no racial majority and
Hispanics make up the largest ethnic group, residents in the far northern
counties are overwhelmingly White.
