Louis J. Marinelli

Louis J. Marinelli (born 1986 or 1987) is a political activist known for having launched a campaign for California independence in 2014, re-branded as Yes California in 2015. Marinelli is the president of Yes California and the former interim chairman of the California National Party, under which he also ran for California State Assembly in California's 80th State Assembly district representing south San Diego, National City, Chula Vista, San Ysidro, and the surrounding communities, where he had been teaching English for EF Education First. In 2016, he moved to Yekaterinburg, Russia^[2] to teach English abroad and later relocated to Moscow in 2018 to become a kindergarten English teacher there.^[3] Marinelli left Russia with his family in December, 2021, to return to the United States.

Prior to his California secession and independence activism, Marinelli was a controversial figure in the debate over same-sex marriage in the United States, until his public resignation from the National Organization for Marriage in April 2011, out of his new-found support for same-sex marriage.