This Fall, California Voters Could Decide Whether To Split Their State In Three

The Federalist ^ | 04/20/2018 | Tony Lima

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Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper has come up with a scheme to split California into three states, and he’s collected twice as many signatures as he needs to get the proposition on the ballot in November. Some 600,000 Californians have signed his petition, which would allow a vote on whether to split the state into North California, South California and California.

Personally, I would have named the third part Coastal California. Here’s what Draper has in mind:

He has done one thing correctly. He has roughly equalized population among the three regions in his proposal. The effect, however, would be to syphon all the conservatives off into one state — South California — and create two progressive states. In other words, progressives would get four U.S. senators and conservatives just two.

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What about the House of Representatives? Excluding states that only get one representative as well as the District of Columbia, which gets zero, each member of the House represents 705,524.19 people. That makes it easy to calculate House membership under Draper’s proposal. North California would get 18 members, South California 19 and (Coastal) California 16.

Curiously, the conservative state would get more representatives than either of the other two. But note the total of 34 progressive representatives to 19 conservative representatives. (These figures assume total representation in the House would equal California’s current 53 members.)

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So here’s how it would break down. Northern California would get districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 10 and the northern bit of 5 (basically Santa Cruz county). Coastal California gets the rest of 5 plus 7. And South California gets 6, 8, 9, 11, and 12.

While it’s tempting to look at the number of miles of highways in each new state that the transportation agency would have to manage, that’s a fool’s errand. Eastern California (at least down to King’s County) is home to some of the heaviest snowfall in the U.S. Currently the base at a Lake Tahoe ski area is 400 inches. The northwest part of the state is subject to heavy rain. In fact, Del Norte county gets an average of 132 inches of rain per year. Contrast that with Imperial’s annual average of 3 inches. Southeastern California is home to the Joshua Tree National Park, Death Valley, and a lot of desert. Add to all that the varying degrees of earthquake risk in various areas, and it’s easy to see that highway miles alone would not be a good predictor of likely costs.

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California is home to three public college and university systems: the University of California, the California State University, and community colleges. The UC system has ten campuses: North California would get five, Coastal California two, and South California three. Would Los Angeles and Santa Barbara go along with that? In addition, the UC system has six medical centers, two national laboratories, and a host of other activities. What a mess.

[1Old Pro]

Can we get this in NYS? Split off the 5 burroughs?

[Jim from C-Town]

They can only petition the Federal government to accept the new states and their suggested borders. The state can not do this without the United States government accepting the break-up.

[SeekAndFind]

But it gets even worse when you consider the CSU system. North California would get nine (Stanislaus is located northwest of Merced). South California would get four, while Coastal California would get ten. Those who live in the Inland Empire and Orange County would not be happy.

There are 114 campuses in the California Community College System. I leave it to readers with way too much time on their hands to perform those calculations.

[Cobra64]

Sacramento and south should NOT be part of Northern California. Those are mostly conservative counties.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Can we get this in NYS? Split off the 5 burroughs?

This idea isn’t new in NYS, there has been a movement for some time for Long Island to secede from New York. The proposed new state has also speculated the combination of Nassau and Suffolk counties into one county in order to reduce costs

SEE HERE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_(proposed_state)

Nothing ever comes out of it...

[truth_seeker]

Since the start of California, there was a rift between the North and South.

It is a fairly workable map.

[b4its2late]

New York should too, hopefully.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Sacramento and south should NOT be part of Northern California. Those are mostly conservative counties.

Isn’t Sacramento the SEAT OF GOVERNMENT POWER? How can it be conservative?

[Codeflier]

Sacramento didn’t seem too conservative to me on my recent trip there for a few days of work. However, I was mainly considering the city, not the county.

[ASOC]

If this goes thru - how long before Texas breaks into 4 more States - as they legally can do...
(https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/more-150-years-texas-has-had-power-secede-itself-180962354/)

Money quote from the article:
“We’re the only state that can divide ourselves without anybody’s permission,” says Donald W. Whisenhunt, a Texas native and author of the 1987 book The Five States of Texas: An Immodest Proposal. “That’s just the way it is.”

[b4its2late]

Divide NYS into one state with three completely autonomous regions

[Codeflier]

Wouldn’t the net senatorial effect be the same? 2 net progressive California senators, just like now. The other 4 would cancel each other out.

Also, this seems like a potential big win from an electoral college perspective!

That being said, no way this happens.

[spokeshave2]

What about the Senate...CA gets another 4 seats.,.?

[ScottinVA]

They’ve very slyly inserted the zoo that is the Bay Area into the NorCal section. The best anyone can hope for out of this is maybe the rare case of one GOP Senator in the SoCal state. Meanwhile the North Staters continue on unrepresented.

[factoryrat]

Nope. I say the US revokes California statehood, declares it a hostile territory, and installs a federal governor to administer the state. Once we clear out all of the mexican nationals who have invaded the state, and all of state officials that aided and abetted them, then we can consider letting California back into the union.

These leftist socialist-democrats aren’t going to get away with attempting to give California to mexico, no matter how hard they try.

[outofsalt]

"They can only petition the Federal government to accept the new states and their suggested borders. The state can not do this without the United States government accepting the break-up."

"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."
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1

What you say is true but, I believe Texas has the right to subdivide into 4 states, should it choose to, in accordance with its original charter accepting it into the union.