CALIFORNIA: Former NOM Staffer Files For State To Secede From United States

JMG reader Ben points out yet another crackpot 2016 ballot measure for California. This one calls for the state to become an independent nation.

Sovereign California is challenging the bankrupt and dysfunctional American political system with a new hope for California. Our new hope lies in greater autonomy so we can do what is right for California. For the past three decades, the United States has used us as a donor state – reinvesting a quarter of our tax dollars every year to bankroll infrastructure and education in other states while roads in California remain neglected – now 3rd worst in the nation – and our children attend substandard schools – now 5th worst in the nation. Is this ever going to stop? Not unless we change the status quo – and that means a new relationship with the United States. We will define that new relationship by establishing a state panel that puts ideology aside and puts California first. This panel represents a new hope for California.

If the name on the below referendum filing seems familiar to you, that's because he is the very same NOM tour bus driver that later came out in support of same-sex marriage. In blog posts after his April 2011 defection, Louis Marinelli claimed that Brian Brown had instructed him to take photos of counter-protesters that made them appear to be "crazy." Brown then dismissed Marinelli as "nothing more than a volunteer bus driver," but Good As You then proved that Marinelli was the administrator of NOM's Facebook page and had actually come up with the idea of the bus tour in the first place.