The rollout, on Valentine’s Day, is when Democratic State Senator and Glenn County rancher AJ Donelson, relaxing with his wife Rachel at home, hears from chief of staff Andrei Volkov. There is trouble brewing at the upcoming water hearing AJ is set to chair. Andrei has been visited by “six men dressed in black and grey camouflage wearing combat boots and berets,” and they want no water compromise with the South State.
At the same time, a Republican kingmaker from the South State pressures AJ to cut a deal to transfer more water, turn Republican, and in return get backing for a Congressional run. To top it off, the head of the DWR is about to sell out the North State.
AJ will be severely tested, in both body and soul, as he becomes enmeshed in the murderous violence of “The Jefferson State Rebellion: A Story Of Northern California’s Past, Present, And Future” ($15.95 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle) by Robert M. Jackson, professor emeritus of political science and past dean of the School of Graduate, International, and Sponsored Programs at Chico State.
Politically complex and deeply human, the book is just stunning. The North State becomes a character in the story, from a heist of explosives in Chico, to meetings with a reporter at Action News Now, to a bloody encounter at an abandoned barn in Colusa County. In Jackson’s telling, the push for a 51st state of Jefferson becomes deadly serious.
Dan tells the reporter, “Jefferson will be able to defend our water resources…. We have a right to chart our own destiny.”
But at what cost?
