A second California county bordering Oregon has voted to secede and form a new state of Jefferson in the border region.
Modoc County supervisors voted to join Siskiyou County
, according to the Redding Record-Searchlight.
the "increasing tendency by the State of California to exercise legislative and fiscal malfeasance" and "assaults upon Second Amendment rights."
"I put the measure on the agenda because I heard from a number of people in my district that wanted to do such," Board Chairman Geri Byrne said. "We’re not saying we’re seceding today, we’re saying let’s look into it."
There has been periodic talk stretching back decades about creating a new State of Jefferson that would be made up of counties in southern Oregon and in northern California. It was
, but the movement died out when the U.S. entered World War II.
Any counties seeking to form a new state would have to win approval from their current state Legislature as well as from Congress -- which is widely thought to be nearly politically impossible to achieve.
Siskiyou County kicked off the
earlier this month. So far, no Oregon county has expressed interest in following their California neighbors in voting to secede.
Modoc County is directly east of Siskiyou County and is bordered by Klamath and Lake counties in Oregon.
--Jeff Mapes