Proposal to split California into three states makes ballot
A proposal to split California into three states has obtained sufficient signatures to be placed on the ballot in November.
Adding the proposal to the ballot is the first in a long number of steps that would be required to actually split the country’s largest state. Even if California voters supported the proposal in November, the California legislature would still have to vote in favor of it. The breakup would also likely be challenged in court and would need congressional approval, a tough get in today’s hyperpartisan Washington.
The initiative proposes the state to be split into three new states: California, Northern California and Southern California. Each state, though different in size, would have roughly the same population, according to the proposal.
I would not be surprised if the voters approve this proposal, as the state’s fascist and leftist urban areas along the coast have been making life miserable for the rest of the state. And when you treat people badly, they tend to vote against you.
Whether it can make it through the state legislature, dominated by the left, is more doubtful. It is likely the split would reduce the left’s power, and since the legislature is controlled by the left, I suspect they will not go along.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
A proposal to split California into three states has obtained sufficient signatures to be placed on the ballot in November.
Adding the proposal to the ballot is the first in a long number of steps that would be required to actually split the country’s largest state. Even if California voters supported the proposal in November, the California legislature would still have to vote in favor of it. The breakup would also likely be challenged in court and would need congressional approval, a tough get in today’s hyperpartisan Washington.
The initiative proposes the state to be split into three new states: California, Northern California and Southern California. Each state, though different in size, would have roughly the same population, according to the proposal.
I would not be surprised if the voters approve this proposal, as the state’s fascist and leftist urban areas along the coast have been making life miserable for the rest of the state. And when you treat people badly, they tend to vote against you.
Whether it can make it through the state legislature, dominated by the left, is more doubtful. It is likely the split would reduce the left’s power, and since the legislature is controlled by the left, I suspect they will not go along.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
i’ll be voting against it.
Liberals sometimes mumble hopefully about splitting up California to increase their influence in government (Now we could have SIX elderly liberal ladies in the Senate instead of two!). It isn’t clear elections would go that way that smoothly.
Conservatives mumble about splitting up the state — and sometimes do some organizing work — with the idea that the great bulk of the state, the inland areas and just about everything north of Main County, is filled with conservatives or apolitical working folk who are not well served by the current state government and whose interests are not really represented by most California Congressmen. Problem #1 with this is that California is not so simply divided — San Diego is a pretty Republican town, and so is much of Orange County and much of Santa Barbara, even though all three are “coastal”. Problem #2 is that farmers and other rural people here are politically powerless because they are greatly outnumbered by people living in the coastal cities and this proposal isn’t going to much change that. Problem #3 is California has some pluses; it’s the home of the movies and Silicon Valley and two NASA centers (three if you count JPL) and oil wells and an extraordinary university system and a pretty good system of infrastructure. Cut the state into pieces and rural fok are going to find themselves in something like Iowa — the scenery might be the same but the culture would be different.
Finally, and this is the major thing, we’ve already had one scheme pushed to split up California in the past decade, and it’s pretty clear the people backing the idea then were millionaires who really wanted to carve out a little enclave running from San Jose to San Francisco, incorporating Silicon Valley and Stanford University and perhaps a couple of nice golf courses. With of course two senators and a dozen Congressmen and ever so friendly tax rates. Splitting the rest of the state into half a dozen larger (but poorer) chunks was going to obscure the creation of this megalomaniacs’ Shangri-la. This sounds like a repeat.
Article 4; Section 3:
Clause 1. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
Clause 2. The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.
Is this measure related at all to the “Six-California’s” movement? If I recall correctly, they could never get that particular Plan, on the ballot.
http://www.sixcalifornias.com/
4 more senators and many more congressmen? Bad idea………..
A bigger Federal gov’t is NEVER the answer…..
wayne: If you read the article I linked to, it specifically states that the guy behind this new effort was the guy behind the six states effort.
F16 Guy, there would indeed be additional senators, but I’d expect the number of congressman stay the same, just divvied up, since that’s based on the existing population. California’s present guaranteed boost for the Dems in the Electoral College certainly would be diminished.
I would love to see this vote pass.
Can you imagine how much arguing they will have about which new state carries what previous debt and how much each must payback.
If you thought a divorce was complicated this would make even the worst look like a simple tiff.
Mr. Z.,
thank you, didn’t go that deep.
I’m fairly neutral on this, although I think it’s wholly ill advised on a number of levels. And I can’t believe under any circumstance it would be more efficient with reference to basic infrastructure at whatever level any of them eventually chose.
Politically, it would diminish California as an Electoral block and maybe put some electoral votes in play, but I’ve pretty much written off Ca., and am more currently worried that Texas might flip, and long before Ca. broke up into pieces.
–not opposed to this type of thing conceptually. (occasionally, some people in Michigan’s upper peninsula have brought up creating a separate State, but that never gained any traction.) But– I think it’s a distraction & a fruitless path to pursue, but I don’t live in California.
–I would however bring up the 17th amendment; as long as federal senator’s are not accountable to their respective state legislature’s, the senate is useless, and it would be a bad idea to add federal senator’s.
And… does anyone in California want Mitch McConnel and his RINO buddies, to be involved in this process? The Feds have to agree to what the Ca. Legislature dreams up.
That having been said, I do support the Article 5 movement, so I won’t totally criticize these people. (and/but, with an Article 5, the federal government is totally by-passed & they play no part.)
–at least they aren’t actively talking about seceding!
It is amazing, how much California was acting like, what’ N. Carolina circa 1860? Jeez.
Q: What’s the population of Ca.? 30-40 million? and they have like’ 10 million illegal aliens, (who apparently Vote in high percentages) and 25% of the population is on food stamps and Medicaid, and what…. 20% of the land is owned by the federal government? and…. they have no WATER!
[GO Oski the Bear!]
What is plain to me is that the rest of the state appears tired of being dominated and oppressed by the Liberal and always growing wackier Leftists that dominate California politics.
Its a form of political bloodless revolution, the alternative that might result that being not a bloodless revolution might be a much less desired choice. Given people like the MS13 supporting and Trump derangement syndrome sufferer Nancy Pelosi and the others that have dominated their politics has caused this.
Give the people what they want, their freedom from their Liberal / leftist state government oppressors.
I have no fear that California will split.
1. Once Los Angeles realizes that it is cut off from its main source of water, the Sacramento River, it will vote no on this proposal, either in November or in the state legislature.
2. Once Democrats realize that at least one of the new states will be a red state, they will be less inclined to vote for this proposal, as half or more of the additional senators would be Republican. Also, it would be harder to make a 60% majority, as it would require 63 senators.
3. Once Democrats realize that there would be a loss of Democrat representation in the Electoral College, they will be inclined to vote no on this proposal.
4. There have been many proposals to split California dating back at least half a century, when I first started paying attention to politics. Most of those proposals assured Los Angeles of access to the Sacramento River but remained unpopular. The thing that makes this proposal newsworthy is that it is the first to get enough signatures for the ballot, not that it is anywhere near being popular.
There has never been much enthusiasm for splitting up the state, and there isn’t much enthusiasm now.