Left Coast Brain Drain

An interesting, and under-reported, statistic from Daniel Henninger:

The most significant voting bloc in California’s famous recall election isn’t Hispanics or angry male Democrats but the people who were so eager to weigh in that they’ve already voted–with their feet. According to a report out this month from the U.S. Census Bureau, an astounding 2,204,500 Californians threw in the towel from 1995 to 2000 and highballed it out of the “Golden State.” The state’s net migration figure for the period is –755,536, and would be worse if Latin American immigrants didn’t still drop in for a look. This is the first time the net migration number for California has ever gone negative.

There’s more:

If you look down the Census Bureau’s coming-and-going column nearby, the consistent breakdown of Democratic blue-state population losers and Republican red-state gainers is striking (there are exceptions; Oregon and Washington state gained, while Louisiana lost). This may leave the blue states bluer than ever, but not very pleasant places to live if their most industrious, motivated citizens are loading up one-way U-Hauls.

Is California the new Europe?