YES...Divide California!

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | June 2, 1998 | By Columist JOHN KING

[Bill Hutton III]

... " It's Time To Divide California 4-state plan would bring politics closer to home

CALIFORNIA -- As this political season draws to a welcome close, only one clear message has emerged from this virtual campaign:

Enough already.

The problem isn't just the latest batch of dreary candidates and deceptive propositions. It's bigger than that -- as big as the sprawling state of California and its 33 million inhabitants.

Let's get straight to the point: California is too big to be governable, too big for its residents to feel any connection with the state government that oversees their lives. So make a clean break with the past and chop California into three states, maybe four...."

[Docbarleypop]

Just like when i was a kid and my mom cut off the icky crusts!!

[You Dirty Rats]

Another way to look at this is that California can be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual but it can't be asexual.

Or one could say that since California has a big anti-nucular lobby, fission of the State shouldn't happen.

[savedbygrace]

So, do you really think both the CA legislature and the U. S. Congress would EVER agree to this? That's what the Constitution requires, you know.

[CyberAnt]

Hi Gal - how are you! Roger Hedgecock is planning a "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" trip to Sacramento the end of June. I sure hope I can go - but I have a written test for a good job on 4/19 - and if I get hired, then I probably won't be able to ask for time off.

But as to dividing the state, why three states ..?? I always thought 2 - a North and South - that gives a more even mix, with the Bush crowd weighted in the south.

What say you?

[SoCal Pubbie]

I am absolutely opposed to splitting California.

[Joe Hadenuf]

They failed to mention my compound, and I have rights to land as far as the smoke from a BBQ can travel in any direction for two moons.

And I'm not selling or dividing anything.

The greatest state of the greatest country on earth

[CyberAnt]

Why? Do you see some major problems in that area.

[Amerigomag]

Do you see some major problems in that area.

You bet he does. If the state is split he hasn't got any water.

Almost all of the surface water in the state comes from the mountain range on the east side of the Great Valley (Sacramento/San Joaquin Valleys).

Both San Francisco and Los Angeles are absolutely dependent on these water supplies, exported to them via pipe line or canal.

[CyberAnt]

I thought the south's water came from AZ

[gracie1]

That's only the water that comes from the Colorado river. The California Aqueduct sends the majority of SoCal's to them. That water originates in the Sierra. Then there's the water from Mono lake via the Los Angeles aqueduct. Again, the Sierra Neveda.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Water has nothing to do with my sentiments. Unlike the Confederates in 1861, I see the idiocy in regional madness taken to the extreme.

[Amerigomag]

Unlike the Confederates in 1861, I see the idiocy in regional madness taken to the extreme.

I agree.

Creating additional layers of governments would only aggravate the problems in the region, not resolve them.

Putting the voters "in touch" with the existing regional government by redistricting republican boundaries would go a long way toward resolving our immediate problems.

As things stand today in the region, we are subject to the tyranny of many political minorities, each with their own single agenda. Our legislative branch is today closer to a parliament than a republic. Regional decisions are based on the political power of a single area with little regard to the general welfare of the region.

The most glaring example is the disastrous effect that the political power of the Los Angeles School District has had upon the public educational system throughout the state. The LASD is a monetary black hole that today consumes over 42% of the state's funding while contributing less than 13%, absolutely financially crippling the rest of the school districts in the state.

[GATOR NAVY]

How does West Virginia fit in that?

[heleny]

How does West Virginia fit in that?

IIRC, Virginia first seceded from the Union, and then West Virginia joined the Union as a new state.

[heleny]

Article IV, Section 3: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state ..."

So this idea is unconstitutional.

Thanks for bringing up this most important aspect, which I completely forgot, and which the author completely failed to mention.

If it wasn't, than the party that controls Congress could divide a state packed with its members into 51 small states and get 100 new Senators.

Good point.

[paleocon patriarch]

Didn't the Texas Republic join the Union with a condition that they could later subdivide into, if memory serves, five smaller states, if they so voted?

[norton]

Oh, yeah!

Four or six liberal duchies instead of just one, that's just what I want to see in the Senate.

[GATOR NAVY]

Yes, but if the war was fought under the assumption that Virginia didn't have the right to secede in the first place, then the Constitution still applied to it, right?

[You Dirty Rats]

That agreement with the Texas Republic was signed before Texas was admitted as a state. Now that Texas is a State, I don't think they could legally split into five states.

[You Dirty Rats]

I think you are correct, but that point was disregarded at the time and since.

The North stated before the war that secession was illegal; the South disagreed. When it was convenient to carve West Virginia out of Virginia, for that purpose the North changed its mind.

After the war, the North (Congress) said that the South had left the Union and had to be readmitted, while the South said they never legally left. The main reason for this is if the Southern States had come back into Congress immediately after the war, then the Republicans would have lost control of the Congress. Naturally, they didn't want to lose control after winning the war, so they acted like politicians: power over a legal principle they had previously held.

I'm not personally criticizing the likes of Thaddeus Stevens and Ben Wade on this issue: I am sure that if I was in their shoes, I would have made the same choice. Successful politicians need to change tack if they want to keep winning, because the electorate are fickle.