One nation, under California

The exceptionally low turnout in the 2014 election cycle is shaping up to have an interesting effect on the 2016 election year. The number of signatures required to place a citizen-backed initiative on the next ballot is set at 5 percent of the number of votes cast in the last election; whereas an initiative needed 504,760 valid voter signatures to make it to the 2014 ballot, that number has dropped to just 366,000 to put a measure not involving a constitutional amendment to voters next year.

An Orange County lawyer has already been cleared to gather signatures for his "Sodomite Suppression Act" that would legalize, and even encourage the murder of homosexuals. An activist from Los Angeles quickly fired back, paying a $200 fee to register a competing "Intolerant Jackass Act" that seeks to force the first initiative's author to spend a year in sensitivity training and donate $5000 to a pro-LGBT organization.

San Diegan Louis Marinelli has also recently thrown his idea into the ring: a measure that would order the state to explore the option of partial secession from the United States, forming an "autonomous region" that's largely self-governing and shares a relationship with the U.S. similar to Hong Kong's with China or Scotland's with the U.K.

Marinelli's Sovereign California group is also behind measures seeking to change the title of the state's top executive from "governor" to "president" and fly the state flag at the same height as the national colors. He says the lower signature-gathering hurdle to get measures on the ballot made 2016 a prime year to strike.

"That's why we waited for this year to start turning in signatures," Marinelli told Environment & Energy Publishing, calling the lowered bar for ballot approval "very helpful for groups like ours to try to go out and make some changes."

Marinelli isn't new to political activism — in 2010 the English-as-a-second-language teacher spent his summer touring the country crusading against gay marriage before having an apparent change of heart.

According to Environment & Energy, he isn't afraid of being labeled a crackpot, insisting that California should keep more of the revenues generated by its natural resources and take control of issues currently handled by the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Services.

"This is not an anti-America thing," says Marinelli. "We just think California is better able to do it themselves. California is an example of freedom and diversity and tolerance."