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Shasta County, California – A Republican lawmaker in California is reviving an old and improbable dream — cutting the state in two.
Just two days after voters approved Proposition 50, a ballot measure redrawing the state’s congressional districts, Assemblyman James Gallagher announced plans to reintroduce a resolution that would form a new state made up of California’s inland and northern counties. Speaking at a Shasta County board of supervisors meeting on Thursday, Gallagher argued that rural Californians have been left behind by a state government dominated by coastal cities.
“Let’s not discount ourselves in what this Inland California is actually really capable of,” Gallagher said. “I think we can do it a lot better than the government that is currently controlled by the coastal representatives.”
His proposal, which he first floated in August, would split California from its northern border all the way to Mexico, carving out 36 counties to form what would become the nation’s 51st state. Gallagher’s argument is not new. For decades, some Californians have chafed at the dominance of Los Angeles and San Francisco in the state’s politics and economy, arguing that inland regions pay more than their share in taxes while receiving less in return.
But this latest call comes at a particularly charged moment. Proposition 50 — championed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — temporarily redraws California’s congressional map in ways expected to benefit Democrats ahead of next year’s midterm elections. The new boundaries target five Republican-held seats and could help offset GOP-friendly maps approved in Texas.
For Gallagher, the move was the final straw. He framed the redistricting effort as proof that the state’s political system has become hostile to rural and conservative Californians. “Whether you are from the North State, Central Valley, or the Inland Empire, life has become harder and completely unaffordable,” Gallagher said in a statement. “We have been overlooked for far too long, and now they are trying to rip away what little representation we have left.”
Democrats, meanwhile, see Proposition 50 as a corrective — a way to rebalance representation in a state where population growth has been uneven and partisan polarization is widening. Celebrating the win, Newsom called it “a victory for the United States of America” and “the principles our Founding Fathers lived and died for.”
Republicans like Rep. Kevin Kiley, however, have described the measure as gerrymandering in plain sight. “Fighting fire with fire burns everything down,” Kiley said in a video posted on X. “With California’s new gerrymander, the redistricting arms race has no end in sight. It’s a race to the bottom.”
Despite Gallagher’s ambitions, his proposal faces long odds. To succeed, it would need approval from both the Democratic-controlled state legislature and Congress — something no previous partition attempt has ever achieved. Only three states in U.S. history — Kentucky, Maine, and West Virginia — were created by splitting off from existing ones, and the last time that happened was during the Civil War.
Still, the idea’s persistence says something about the fractures running through California — and the country. In a state that just overtook Japan as the world’s fourth-largest economy, prosperity remains profoundly uneven. Gallagher’s vision of “Inland California” may never materialize, but the frustration fueling it is very real — and growing louder.
