A campaign launched this week to create a 51st state by separating rural areas in California from the state's coastal cities and Sacramento, with supporters saying the state has become "ungovernable."

The movement calls for "a free and Independent State" with "full power to establish and maintain law and order, to promote general prosperity," according to its "Declaration of Independence," released on Monday.

However, the movement is not calling to leave the U.S.

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The "New California" movement claims California is a failed state due to its high taxes and declining health care, among other things.

"There's something wrong when you have a rural county such as this one, and you go down to Orange County which is mostly urban, and it has the same set of problems, and it happens because of how the state is being governed and taxed," the campaign's co-founder, Robert Paul Preston, told CBS Sacramento.

The movement's leaders say they want to work with the state legislature, which would have to hold a vote on dividing the state prior to submitting a resolution to Congress.

The campaign appears to face long odds of success, but organizers say they are undeterred.