Sick of California being part of the United States? There may be a way out.

A new voter initiative could again put the question of secession in front of California voters after getting clearance from the Secretary of State to gather signatures last week.

Multiple groups have pushed for California to leave the union in the past decade. The initiative sponsor, CalExit (founded the same year and named after the Brexit vote in Great Britain) backed several unsuccessful attempts to put the issue before voters since 2016.

Marcus Ruiz Evans, who calls himself “the godfather of CalExit,” is determined that this time will be different for one president-sized reason.

“We lost a lot of support in 2016” Evans said in a phone interview, because President Donald Trump won the election without winning the popular vote nationwide. This time, Trump won both, though he’s lost California by wide margins in the past three elections.

“Now they’re having to realize we’re tied to a country that actually likes this guy,” he said. “All the things that hurt us last time are dead in the water.”

The CalExit initiative would not make any official moves toward leaving the union, serving more as a referendum on the U.S. government. If it gets on the 2026 ballot and approved by voters, it would create a state commission to study “California’s viability as (an) independent country” and put the question on a future ballot.

According to the initiative language, “If at least 50% of registered voters participate in that election, and at least 55% vote yes’, it would constitute ‘a vote of no confidence in the United States of America’ … but would not change California’s current government or relationship with the United States.”

Getting the required 546,000 signatures to put an initiative on the ballot is a massive feat that often requires millions of dollars to pay professional signature gatherers. Ruiz Evans said he is starting with a grassroots campaign but hoping for an “angel donor” to help gather signatures.

The initiative organizer said he first started thinking about this idea about 20 years ago, when polls showed most Americans supported the invasion of Iraq. But at the same time, about two-thirds Californians opposed it.

“I just was going to write a book on how California was different culturally,” he said. “But then I looked into it more.”

His 2013 book “California’s Next Century 2.0: Economic Renaissance” dives into many of his economic arguments for secession: that as the world’s fifth-largest economy, California would be able to stand on its own; that as a “donor state,” California taxpayers are shortchanged by the federal government.

That’s especially true when it comes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency helping pay for natural disaster aid, Ruiz Evans argued. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to withhold wildfire aid from California unless its leaders make water policy changes.

“How much money is FEMA going to give us for the (Los Angeles) fires,” he said. “If we are independent, and we have an extra $100 billion, we’re not subsidizing other states,” he said.

Critics of secession say there are a litany of legal questions and arguments for national unity. As a separate country, California would have to pay to build its own military and set up a nationalized government..

“I get it. We’re the extreme option,” Ruiz Evans said. “We just think we’re the most reasonable now.”