Good article, hope they can achieve their goals.

"New California" Conservative Movement Declares Independence As First Step Towards 51st State

Source: ZeroHedge

"A group called "New California" has taken its first step towards carving the Golden State in two - issuing a "declaration of independence" which would incorporate most of the state's rural counties - while coastal counties from the northern San Francisco Bay Area to the southern tip of Los Angeles would remain part of the existing state. 

Quoted by CBS,   founder Paul Preston said "Well, it's been ungovernable for a long time. High taxes, education, you name it, and we're rated around 48th or 50th from a business climate and standpoint in California."

"There's something wrong when you have a rural county such as this one, and you go down to Orange County which is mostly urban, and it has the same set of problems, and it happens because of how the state is being governed and taxed," Preston said.

The group is serious about this effort - printing pamphlets (here  and  here  and  here) citing authority granted in the U.S. Constitution "to provide a republican form of government as guaranteed by Article IV, Section 4," which co-founder Robert Paul Preston says has not been the case in California for a long time. “There’s something wrong when you have a rural county such as this one, and you go down to Orange County which is mostly urban, and it has the same set of problems, and it happens because of how the state is being governed and taxed,” Preston said. ...."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-17/new-california-conservative-movement-declares-independence-first-step-towards-51st