With human migration, there is something called the “gate test.” If a nation opens its gates, do people come in or do they flee? With the Berlin Wall, it was obvious. Once the wall fell, there was a rush of humanity from East to West, not the other way around. The “gate test” applies to states as well.

The California gates are open and people are going, well, elsewhere. That fact was made abundantly clear this past week when Census results were announced and California lost a congressional seat for the first time in the state’s history.

As Assemblyman Kevin Kiley put it on Twitter, “We just lost a seat in Congress. If the California Exodus is a myth, apparently the Census Bureau is in on it.” In the last decade, 1.3 million more people left California than came in from other states. And, it’s accelerating. Half a million people have left for other states in the last two years alone.

Boosters of the status quo were quick to point out that California’s population actually grew overall, it just didn’t grow as fast as other states. But that misses the point.

Net domestic migration is a measure of movement among states. Unlike population, it ignores international migration as well as number of births over deaths. Two decades ago, policy leaders and the media started paying attention to the fact that California was trending toward net domestic outmigration. Governors from other states, most notably Rick Perry from Texas, were openly poaching businesses from California arguing, correctly, that their states were better for businesses as well as the people they employ.

To read the entire column, please click here.