The Free State of Arizona?

[KamaAina]

That's how fed up some Arizona Dems are.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110302/ts_yblog_thelookout/frustrated-by-rightward-drift-some-arizona-dems-push-secession

Paul Eckerstrom, the former Democratic party chairman of Pima County, has formed a political committee, Start Our State, to look into making Pima the 51st U.S. state.

Start Our State says its mission is "to establish a new state in Southern Arizona free of the un-American, unconstitutional machinations of the Arizona legislature and to restore our region's credibility as a place welcoming to others, open to commerce, and friendly to its neighbors."

Eckerstrom told MSNBC yesterday that he and others in his party are acting out of their exasperation with a series of rightward moves by the state--a tough anti-immigration bill, cuts to education approved by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, and efforts by some lawmakers to "nullify" federal laws. Cuts to critical health care programs and loose gun laws have also helped give the state a reputation lately as a bastion of staunch conservatism, Eckerstrom explained....

But that isn't stopping Eckerstrom from mulling names for his new state. He said he'd received several suggestions, including Baja Arizona, South Arizona, and Gadsden. That's a reference to the Gadsden Purchase of southern Arizona from Mexico, in 1854.

:wow:

Note: the story contains two glaring errors: Maricopa County, not Pima, is the state's largest (by far), and it is a "neighboring county" only in desert areas well west of the major cities.