Yes California
Yes California is a Californian political action committee that promotes the Independence of the state of California from the United States.
Formation | 2015 |
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Founder | Louis J. Marinelli |
Focus | Californian independence |
Headquarters | CA |
Website | www |
It was founded in 2015 by Louis J. Marinelli, a right-wing political activist, and its efforts have been supported by the Russian government.
The organization promoted a proposed initiative to be placed on the 2019 California state ballot, which, if it had passed, would have required an independence plebiscite to be held in March 2019 on the question of California's independence. In order to comply with federal law, however, it would have still required an amendment to the United States Constitution. In January 2017, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla gave his approval for the organization to gather petition signatures to put the initiative on the ballot. The organization then halted their efforts in April, stating that they want to re-tool their proposal and campaign. They were again cleared to collect petition signatures on September 10, 2020.
In 2023, citing national divorce, Yes California announced a new ballot measure campaign that would divide parts of coastal California, including the Bay Area, from California to become an independent country while leaving the rest of the state in the Union. The organization's president, Louis J. Marinelli, described the underlying objective of the new ballot measure was "to get the extreme, far-left liberals and progressives who are ruining the country as a whole, to go and build a progressive utopia of their own on the Pacific coast, and leave us out of it."