Secession Speakeasy #198: Congressman James Gallagher's Case for Splitting California

Released September 14, 2026.

Professor Wall (Grant M. Dahl) and the Secession Minstrel take up Congressman James Gallagher’s public push to split California in two. Gallagher, a former Republican leader in the California Assembly, recently won a special election to Congress from Northern California, and over the last several months he has been arguing that the coast should keep one state while the rural interior forms another. Wall shows a map he drew from the proposal and says it is the first time in his memory that a sitting member of Congress has taken up the idea. He also notes that redistricting has made Gallagher’s reelection in November doubtful.

The two hosts weigh it differently. The Minstrel, who lives in California, calls the plan “a bit impractical” and wants each proposed state to show how it would fund itself and serve its people. He thinks most Californians would sooner keep what they have, because “at least this is the devil that I know.” Wall agrees that Sacramento and Congress will not consent willingly, but argues that the rising cost of food and fuel will push people past that reluctance. He compares the point he expects to February 1917 in Russia, when people could no longer eat, and hopes Gallagher will be the public voice Californians turn to when it comes. As Wall put it, “I think California’s breakup is inevitable.”

Also in this episode

• How Gallagher’s coast-and-interior split compares with the regional movements the show has covered: the State of Jefferson, El Dorado, San Bernardino County and New California
• The Minstrel’s case that oil company profits, more than Sacramento, drive California gas prices, and his complaint that the federal consumer price index no longer measures the same goods it did in 1950
• Wall’s line between conservatives who hold to God and family and the “political preservatives” who only want things kept as they are
• A passage from Ludwig von Mises’s Liberalism holding that when a territory’s people vote in “a freely conducted plebiscite” to leave a state, their wishes should be respected

Secession Speakeasy is an independent program produced by Grant M. Dahl. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the Texian Partisan, Texas Nationalist Enterprises, or the Texas Nationalist Movement. Featuring an episode is not an endorsement.