This is no joke-the residents of Baja, Arizona (Pima County) are moderate liberals that say they are deeply frustrated and have had enough of the Republican led legislature passing extremist legislation and like Maine, that broke from Massachusetts in 1820 they
want to secede from Arizona and become the 51st state.
They have 2,300 supporters on Facebook and 1 million residents.
Maybe the GOP & the Tea party will wake up and smell the coffee when they see progressives fighting back the crazy.
"All of this is extremist legislation, and some is reminiscent of nullification bills leading to the Civil War," he said. "We don't want to be part of that."
Some of the "crazy laws" enacted are:
Arizona has cut organ transplant coverage for Medicaid recipients
Requires police to check immigration status if they have "reasonable suspicion
A Senate bill that would allow Arizona to "nullify," or ignore, any federal law
a panel of lawmakers deemed unconstitutional
The desire of residents to break away from Arizona first needs an estimated 30,000 signatures to get on the ballot in November 2012.
Pima County is in the southwest part of the state including the city of Tucson and geographically is larger than Vermont or Delaware. To become a state is very difficult and if the residents pass this it still has to go to Conress and the President.
"It happens, and it can happen here," said Tucson attorney Paul Eckerstrom, who co-founded the "Start Our State" organization to push for statehood for Baja Arizona.
Pima County, in the southwest part of the state including the city of Tucson, is home to roughly 1 million people and is more politically moderate than neighboring Maricopa County to the north, which includes the state capital of Phoenix.
"Like Maine, which broke off from Massachusetts, we want to get the legislature to let us leave," Eckerstrom said, "and then we can petition Congress to accept us as a state."
Kudos to Baja, Arizona and a link to their Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/...