It's a complex problem taking in more population and finding areas for them to settle in that are economically feasible; especially as Russia and our resident RWNJs are still trying to break the state up, and there's a significant physical disconnect between the state's resource infrastructure and major population clusters. There's a lot of uninhabitable area in the state, not to mention protected environments that would create a problem when managing a large influx of people who may - or may not be bringing jobs or other means of support with them.
Especially since if unchecked, the current federal government will be slashing established federal programs like Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, SCHIP, the VA, food assistance, etc. to the bone over the next decade. So much of resident's taxes and fees go to the Federal Government; California still depends on federal funding (plus the economic boost having federal installations and military bases brings) quite a bit to maintain a standard of living for the working poor and the otherwise unemployable. Yhe abomination of the Rich Guy's Club Tax Cut was planned to get rid of any and all assistance and cripple the states with large populations.
We also have a lot of long-established enclaves of Libertarian flakes who just want to be left alone in their little communities while they pretend frontiersmen not getting any benefit - even though they're always sucking off the government tit for either their employment or the infrastructure support systems that enables them to live out away from the big cities. They hate taxes, even though they need the support to survive in the state they feel comfortable in. Even when they're playing "living off the grid".
One of the reasons we're so blue is that they don't typically vote, and they really resent being forced to share anything with anyone outside their immediate acquaintance.
Start getting on their "radar" or showing up around their communities, and they'll start voting just out of spite, because their attitude is you're stepping on "my Gawd-Given Rights".
They did this in the 1930's and '40's to screw with the Oakies and other sharecroppers fleeing to California to avoid the Dust Bowl, they did this in the 1970's and 1980's to screw with the hippies and counterculture for coming out into the rural areas in North and Central and trying to tell them to be "environmentally conscious" or to treat their migrant workers with just an ounce of dignity instead of just profiting off their labor and screwing them over when it was time to pay.
The problem in being "sanctuary" is that whatever happens, California is currently still part of the U.S., and what happens here still depends a lot on what the Federal Government is planning.
Having a large amount of "troublemakers and anti-status quo" population leaving Red States to concentrate in California - or any of the other Blue States - may be what the GOP and social disruptors want.
It's a form of social Gerrymandering - the same one plaguing this country since territories started becoming states - the flaw in our political process. An increasingly smaller coalescence of "Conservatives" can take over more states and government seats to be able to restrict/regulate and punish more Liberal states in the Senate and through the Administration (via the Electoral Collage).
Maintain enough of a gerrymander of districts in the House due to fewer Liberals in Red and Purple states, and any seat increases due to redistricting in the Blue States can (in their view) be offset by stronger Conservative lock on politics in all the other states.
The real issue is what the West as a whole is going to do about this, if the social compact between the states as a whole is broken along religious/political fracturing. California can't do it alone, nor can Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, or Washington State; the bluest of the Western States. Whatever the situation, they've got to do it together, or each is going to sink. And if the reservations want to split from the Federal Government - as I'm pretty sure this current administration wants to break the treaties and take their lands - I'm thinking they should be considered and incorporated also.
On edit - at this point in time, however, the best thing to do is get out the vote. Get the apathetic, the "I don't like politics", the "I can't handle decisions, all I want to do is my job, let someone else take care of the big stuff" types that don't vote out to vote.
They've been couch surfing in Zombie-Citizen Land for way too long.
Haele
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