Posted on 04/06/2017 10:39:31 AM PDT by pgkdan
The latest news about California — a break-up plan touted by the leaders of Brexit — could serve as a case study of how mischaracterizations spread across the Internet, and how many media outlets echo what others have published or tweeted without apparently doing much checking.
Reports suggest that the so-called “Bad Boys of Brexit,” Nigel Farage and Arron Banks, came to Huntington Beach, Calif., where they raised $1 million for a “Calexit” plan and championed a two-state solution to our ungovernable wreck of a state.
The two were reportedly recruited by former Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh to work on a break-up initiative that would slice the liberal coastal areas away from less-tony inland areas. Published maps show the new coastal state starting with Los Angeles, and lumping more conservative, urban coastal counties (Orange and San Diego) with the new eastern state.
But Baugh says Farage and Banks were in California to receive a political award and that they didn’t do any fund-raising for the effort. He struck up a friendship with the men at the Trump inauguration, and while they were in Orange County he asked them to speak to a couple of right-of-center groups, where they revved up the crowd about a partition effort floated by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Tim Draper.
As I wrote in my New York Times op-ed about the visit, Draper had tried (but failed) to qualify a “Six Californias” initiative on the 2016 ballot. He told me he is eager to revive a similar effort, but said he has no specific maps in mind, and is still studying various demographic, geographic and political data.
Liberal readers harangued me for touting a “Calexit” plan that would have California secede from the United States. Never mind that I dismissed that kooky idea (reportedly pushed by a man with Russian ties), which would tear our nation asunder. But I argued that efforts to break up states are nothing new or outrageous.
It’s all about improving political representation. It’s about 800 miles from California’s Mexican border to Oregon, which is roughly the same distance from Washington, D.C., to Montgomery, Ala. Some of these quaint eastern states (Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut) might make respectable counties out here, but states? Is it really so odd to see why people outside of 10-million-population Los Angeles County get frustrated that their votes often amount to nothing?
There’s a lot of frustration not just in the far-north rural backwaters, but in the highly populated and agriculturally oriented Central Valley (a region larger than West Virginia) and even in the sprawling metropolises in Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties at the short-shrift local concerns receive in Sacramento.
But reading some of these letters reminded me of why Donald Trump gained so much political support in downtrodden rural regions. “With the likes of SpaceX planning Mars colonization, seems your covered-wagon utopia is out of place in California,” wrote one emailer. “Your right to be represented notwithstanding, looks like time for you and yours to sell up and get out.… Adios, and good riddance.” Yeah, why should those silly folks who do nothing important — raising cattle and crops, fishing, producing lumber and energy — hang around, if they can’t be working on space colonization?
Others see a Republican plot to disenfranchise Democratic voters. “So your idea to break up California is to put the two most populated regions of Cali into small states where the bulk of the population will have just 4 Senate votes,” opined another reader. “Then there will be four extremely sparsely populated states with 16 votes, all Republican. Go f*** yourselves.”
Actually, with the help of some number-crunchers, in 2014 I reviewed Draper’s six-state proposal. Under that proposal, three of the proposed new states would remain totally dominated by Democrats, meaning six reliably Democratic senators. Two would be highly competitive, which might lead to a 2-2 split, or a 3-1 GOP advantage. And the state of Jefferson, the far north rural state, probably would result in two Republican senators, although thanks to the big college city of Chico, that region would be less GOP-dominant than expected.
That proposal’s biggest foes would be national Republicans, who fear a Democratic gain in that one legislative body. But Draper and Co. probably will aim for a smaller number of states. Personally, I don’t care as much about the U.S. Senate as I do about the lack of representation at the state level. Surely, backers could chisel a map that doesn’t significantly alter the national political dynamic while giving Californians who live outside Los Angeles and the Bay Area a more significant opportunity for self-government.
As I wrote in the Times, “Some readers may scoff at this seemingly pie-in-the-sky notion, but state boundaries have long been fluid and even illogical. People also thought Brexit was an impossible idea. But state boundaries aren’t sacrosanct. Maybe it’s time to reduce political division by adjusting the political lines.” Or if it’s not yet time for action, maybe it’s time to discuss this thought experiment — at least in a misgoverned mega-state such as California, which continues to lose its most industrious, tax-paying residents to states that are less hostile to enterprise.
And it is always time to stay focused on the facts: Breaking up the state is not the same thing as seceding from the union. There’s still no map in play, but some serious, well-connected Californians are indeed raising money for a run at the ballot. However accurate the reports, I’m thrilled that the Farage and Banks visit has jump-started this debate.
“There’s no precedent for a successful secession but there is for breaking up a state.”
You mean like West Virginia? And yet even that was unconstitutional. The Constitution requires this split off move to come from a state’s legislature, not Congress.
There is nothing in this for the dems, nationally or state.
They already have a permanent dem majority and can now legislate anything they want.
Oh yeah, you can bet that us conservatives would love to split off.
I’m a proponent of the state of Jefferson. That would be an excellent start. I almost wish I still lived in that zoo so I could work for the new state’s creation.
No chance they split other than into 2 states:
The Socialist State of Los Angeles
The Socialist State of San Fransico
Anything else risks losing electoral votes (and congress seats). Ds in the rest of the country would never let it happen. Even Ds in California want to keep their control of the rest of the state and would hate the idea of part of their state gaining sovereignty and not having to follow environmental and immigration laws from Sacramento.
Are you kidding they would go from 2 senate seats to up to 12.
I am sure that is their real goal.
I think this Calexit movement may be a Chinese Communist plot. I also think that it would be in the Chinese Communist Govt’s interest if The US and Russia went to war. The Chinese have been buying influence in Hollywood and Washington for some time and now we are seeing the results of this investment. It would be a huge blow to the US if California succeeded from the Union. I would be ok with California breaking up into smaller states. That really needs to happened in NY. Upstate NY (all the counties north of Westchester) desperately needs to be separated from NYC and Long Island.
In either scenario, foreign governments are engineering calexit.
And all of those “no power plants in my backyard” actors and directors will have to build those evil power plants in their backyards. Otherwise, their movie cameras and cappuccino makers will stop working when the power is switched off.
I agree the organizers of this movement need to be investigated and if are found to be colluding with a foreign govt. need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent. But no, back to the Russia hacked the election fiction.
Colorado sure as hell doesn’t provide NorCal with one
drop of water and we sure as hell don’t need any from
you, either.
There was also the split of Maine from Massachusetts. Splits of states after they became states is rare, but not unknown, and proposed much more often that actually done.
https://mavensnotebook.com/the-notebook-file-cabinet/californias-water-systems/
I don’t believe that they are proposing a north/south split. The map I saw showed all of the coastal counties from Los Angeles county to the Oregon border being one state. The rest of the inland counties and San Diego county would be the second state. In essence California and West California or California and East California.
Personally I prefer California and Soon-to-be-broke.
Oops. No water for the Hover Dam too so that means no electricity for LA and surrounding cities. The Colorado River powers the Hover Dam. :)
Only kidding and no offense... only as serious as the CALEXIT movement.
Wars (states and countries) have started and been fought over water rights. Every once in a while I hear about it from the western slop farmers and folks (of Colorado). It is a serious issue and shouldn’t be joked about. My apologies.
“There was also the split of Maine from Massachusetts.”
Did the Mass legislature approve it? The VA legislature didn’t approve WV breaking off, Congress did.
Article IV
Section 3
“...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...”
I think this Calexit movement may be a Chinese Communist plot. I also think that it would be in the Chinese Communist Govt’s interest if The US and Russia went to war. The Chinese have been buying influence in Hollywood and Washington for some time and now we are seeing the results of this investment. It would be a huge blow to the US if California succeeded from the Union.
____________________
Absolutely the Chinese would benefit from Calexit. It’s a stupid idea from a security standpoint.
Even without China, why would we want a communist country on our western border cutting us off from the sea?
I don’t know how much water SoCal gets from the
Colorado. I was referring to NorCal.
Riparian rights present some complicated issues. I reside
in a county that spans from the Sierra Nevada foothills
eastward, over the Sierra Nevada mountains to the Nevada State
border. We are among the counties which provide water for
most of the state. At least one Central Valley downstream
county has rights to the water which originates here,
rights that we do not have according to my understanding.
In fact, the downstream entity could place a dam in our
county and sell off the water. Obviously, they don’t have
direct access to the land and obtaining permits and
consent is a whole different matter.
Yes. I guess my point is that CA is too linked into the rest of the nation to be able to leave and it will never happen.
To add, environmental regulations can make a state vulnerable, too and power would be an issue because the state fights new power plants. The presumption is that they can be self sufficient which is impossible at this point.
California does not want to split off but there are those
of us who want to split from California as it stands.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.