Audio By Carbonatix
A group of southern Arizona residents who are fed up with the “unconstitutional machinations” that go on in the state Legislature are getting organized — the group recently launched a website to help drum up support for their push to break away from Arizona and form “Baja Arizona,” the nation’s 51st state.
The group “Start Our State” made headlines a few weeks ago for re-igniting the debate over whether a portion of southern Arizona should secede from the state in order to create a less-extreme government to “restore our region’s credibility as a place welcoming to others, open to commerce, and friendly to its neighbors.”
Critics of the group say they’re just a bunch of angry Democrats
seeking attention, but the group claims to have no political agenda. It
claims to be interested in two things: “First, we disagree not only with the most extreme aspects of the [Senate President Russell] Pearce
agenda but also with the manner in which Pearce and the state
legislature are pursuing it. Second, we want to maintain our United
States citizenship and we are concerned that the Pearce agenda puts us
on a path to secession from the United States.”
See the group’s recently created website here. The group’s “statement of purpose” can be seen below.
Breaking away from the State of Arizona is a serious business. As we
enter Arizona’s 100th year, all Arizonans should be coming together to
celebrate the accomplishments of our State and our coexistence and
cooperation not only with other states but other nations, who send their
children to Arizona universities in great numbers.Instead, our state legislature and our governor, with great
determination, are intent on pushing us back into the know-nothing
nativism of the 19th century. Arizona has real problems that require
intelligent and reasonable discussion and resolution. But our state
government has ceded all authority to legislate to one man, Russell
Pearce, who has repeatedly proven himself incapable of reason or
tolerance.As a result, while Arizona shares the struggles of all other states
to achieve economic recovery, our legislature is enamored with
xenophobic attacks on people of Mexican descent. Though done in the name
of “securing our borders,” the solutions in no way address the very
real problems our State faces, and the legislature’s desired result is
to harass an entire population into abandoning their country, even if
those people were born here and have known no other home. Furthermore,
these laws have been, and will continue to be, struck down in the courts
because they are so clearly contrary to the United States Constitution.Now, in flagrant defiance of the realities of existing constitutional
law and the rights of those who live within our borders, Pearce and his
supporters in the legislature have passed legislation permitting them
to nullify all federal laws with which they disagree – including the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects
the rights of all Americans.Most attempts to nullify federal laws by states have been met with a
confrontation with the United States Army, whether it be the Civil War
or the Whiskey Rebellion. This is particularly true where the basis for
nullification has been to deprive certain peoples of basic rights, as is
the case with our state legislature and governor. The vast majority of
the citizens of this State wish to preserve our citizenship and our
rights under the United States Constitution and avoid another civil war.Because Maricopa County contains more than half of the population of
Arizona, citizens of the other fourteen counties can never hope to take
back Arizona government at the ballot box. Therefore, we must express
our self-determination by breaking our political ties to the State of
Arizona and endeavor to form a new State. We welcome all counties of
Arizona to join us in our effort to secure the blessings of liberty.
