Posted on 07/22/2015 10:01:42 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
how would you feel in MA decided to split into 10 states and overnight the senate expanded from 100 members to 118 members, 20 of which come from the area that used to be massachusetts? that’s precisely the point i’m making. somebody from inside of MA looking at things through their own self-interest would say... “that’s a good thing”. but for the other 49 states, it most certainly is not.
california splitting into 6 states does not benefit any of the other states, and is in fact, a bad thing for every other state. the whole point of the senate is to not give any one state more power than any other. that’s why CA has the same number of senators as WY or RI. so WY and RI don’t get marginalized. even if you think that 12 CA senators is a good thing (because in reality they are all CA senators - representing in total an area that is now only represented by 2 senators), every other state in the union will see it as a bad thing and will object.
back in 1992 they were talking about splitting into north and south when i lived there, so this is an old issue. it will never happen. the rest of the country doesn’t want it to happen. we might tolerate a split into 2 if there is some benefit, but not a split into 6. and if CA splits into 6, it would open the floodgates. people in IL would want to split. people in PA would want to split. people in OH would want to split.
so this issue may play well inside of CA, but it’s a complete non-starter outside of CA. my $0.02.
If you read my post #19 you will see my true
position with respect to the 6 state plan vs
the State of Jefferson plan.
If MA could show that they have representation
and administration of government issues then
they may make a case for splitting into 2 or
more states. But they can’t and your example
is absurd.
If I may ask, just where in California did you live?
It doesn’t seem like you got around much but don’t take
offense. None intended.
As for how states created after California was split would tend to vote, in the short run at least, that would depend on where the lines were drawn and how many such states were created. Since California is currently dominated by liberals, I am hard put to be optimistic that they would permit a net weakening of their national political strength.
Of course, any conservative states created out of California could reasonably expect to prosper after liberation from the immense fiscal drag of the free-spending areas of the state. As in most other liberal states, the fiscal reality of state politics is that conservatives are heavily over taxed in order to finance the projects of their liberal political masters. From that perspective, I easily understand how California's hard-working Germans want to be liberated from supporting their free-spending, layabout Greeks.
you’re still not grasping the essential issue.
you can’t try to game the system by splitting a state into many states in order to gain a political advantage against other states without alienating the other states, and that’s what any movement to split CA (or any other state) will ultimately be seen as, outside of that state.
even if a minority in CA don’t feel that their statewide representation cares one bit about their opinions. it happens here and it happens in lots of other states too. secession movements just can’t succeed in the modern age. i think the last one that worked was at the outset of the civil war when VA split into WV and VA, with one staying in the union and the other leaving it.
i spent almost a dozen years in the bay area. i hated it there. the people were not like me and did not believe the things i believed. it was like living in a bizzaro foreign country where up meant down and white meant black. you can probably count on one hand the number of true conservatives there. i was happy to leave. but for all of that, i still would have voted against any referendum to split CA into 2. even if it was an east/west split instead of a north/south split. not only because of the problems it would have caused in the state, but also because i know how feckless the GOP is there and eventually, all 4 of those senate seats would end up in ‘RAT hands for life. other states would not tolerate having their representation diluted either.
consider FDR’s proposal to expand the SCOTUS when he wasn’t able to gain control of the majority by appointment. that was rightly seen as an attempt to stack the court. don’t you think the other 49 states would object in the exact same way to CA going from 2 senators to 12 senators? this is the essential point.
even if CA votes to split into 2 or 4 or 6 or 200 separate states, it’s not gonna fly with the rest of the country. CA can’t force the rest of us to accept them multiplying their influence in DC in this way. and if they were somehow able to get away with it, the floodgates would be open. IL would immediately talk about splitting. same with NY. same with PA. same with lots of other states. and you’d end up with lots more ‘RAT senators in DC overall that would counteract the 2 or 3 GOP senators maybe added by the CA split.
SF and LA aren’t the only problem. Central California is a huge repository of Hispanics.
West California-Liberal/Marxist. East California-Conservative.
So you lived in the BA. Did you have friends
in Red Bluff or Placerville or Live Oak? Did
you not want to pay the bridge toll to get
out of the Bay Area? Do you live in Colorado
now? That state is certainly liberal proof
now, isn’t it?
I reject and resent your claims of “gaming the
system”. We don’t want or care about power over
other states. We just want a little say-so within
our own realm. The County of LA has 11 state
senators. The 20 counties of Northern California
have a total of 3.
Yes, maybe a good marketing job would be needed
to convince neighbors that a split of California would
be good for them but it would be.The California
GOP has not always been feckless and it could be
strong again like it was during the Reagan years.
You just won’t be convinced that splitting California
means anything but giving liberals more power. I am
a fourth generation Californian who has lived in
Maryland and Arizona. You are just plain wrong.
The date on this article is July 15, 2014.
All part of Obama’s “57 states” plan?
Recent electoral maps affirm your
position and I actually concur.
That the political balance has tipped HEAVILY
in favor of liberals is a reason why we want
to change things. At one time the state senate
was represented by 1 senator from each county
and the assembly was represented on a population
basis. Now, both houses are based on population.
We would at least like to go back to the old
way so rural counties would have some
representation.
Under Supreme Court precedent dating from the Warren Court era, all elected representation must be based on population. Thus a system of legislative representation by county would not stand constitutional scrutiny. The representation of states in the US Senate is an exception to this principle in that the Constitution expressly provides for two Senators per state without regard to population.
It’s irrelevant whether or not Californians vote for this.
You need 51 US Senators and 218 Members of Congress to vote for it, and that won’t ever happen without a Missouri Compromise solution to balance the Red and the Blue - such as splitting Texas, Illinois, and New York at the same time.
I knew it was from a court
decision going back to around
1964 or so but that is not something
that is not beyond the possibility of
changing at some point. The
SCOTUS should turn it back to
the states to choose status quo
or change it.
The case was Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962). It would take the equivalent of a legal and revolution to change it.
My friend tells me more directly
relevant is Reynolds v Sims (1964).
With the GOP owning most state houses,
governorships, plus the House and Senate
it doesn’t have to be a pipe dream. However,
just because there is a constitutional change giving
the states the authority to decide how to
address their own constitutions it doesn’t
mean California will change anything. With
the illegal alien situation all conservatives
everywhere might want to take note.
Good for you. I'm a native Californian who left for Texas ten years ago and never looked back. Best move my wife and I ever made.
In law school, the two cases are usually taught together and the point is made that the Supreme Court often tosses their hat into the room in one case before leaping through the door with a more sweeping ruling in an ensuing case.
The problem with trying to amend the constitution to eliminate one man, one vote is that it is now deeply entrenched in the structure and expectations of American politics. There are more urgent priorities for constitutional change and these naturally have a higher claim on conservatism's limited and insecure stock of political capital.
I am not leaving CA. I almost got to, fell in love with Nashville, but it didn’t work. We are just moving under the Orange Curtain here in SoCal. At least I will have R representatives, which is an absolute first for me. But in CA not sayng much.
Oh hell. You said South California. I thought you said South Carolina.
Geeez, Yaelle. You know we call it Southern California!
Well, good for you anyway. You'll like it better than whatever commie-lib town you're in now.
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