Members of the Yes California group protest at the state Capitol on Nov. 9. Marcus Ruiz Evans, the vice president and co-founder of Yes California, said his group had been planning to wait for a later election, but the presidential election of Donald Trump sped up the timeline. The Yes California group has been around for more than two years, Evans said. Qualifying ballot measures typically requires significant resources to pay signature gatherers, and Yes California doesn’t have major financial backing. Yes California has tried and failed previously, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper was not able to get a proposal to split California into six states onto the 2016 ballot.

Source: Los Angeles Times November 21, 2016 18:45 UTC