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For Oroville Vice Mayor Scott Thomson, the father of two young boys, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mandate requiring schoolchildren to be vaccinated against COVID-19 was the final straw.

He believed the government had no right to tell him what to put into his, or his children’s, bodies. Many of his constituents agreed when it came to pandemic mandates.

And so, he came up with a grandiose, headline-grabbing nom de guerre for his small Northern California city.

Oroville declared itself a constitutional republic. A place where the local leaders pledge to fight mandates they say go too far.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.