4 ms·

Is there a government structure where three regions could operate autonomously within a single state of a larger union?

evanlivingston 8y ago
Communalism
adventured 8y ago
Each US state consists of numerous counties, each typically with a city county seat. California for example is broken into 58 counties. Oakland is the Alameda county seat. To follow that premise somewhat, you'd try to give the three new giant regions more independence vs a traditional county. You'd be looking to create a new super-structure above county and below state; the super regions would govern over the counties within (or you'd abolish all the counties and just essentially create three counties in California). If you move to full autonomous (within the US Federal system), then you're really going to have to make them proper separate states or change to the status Puerto Rico has (unincorporated US territory).
csours 8y ago
Sure. States have a lot of power under the constitution - I'm sure a state could do something like that... but that's not the point of this effort. Tim Draper pretty clearly wants more Conservative Senators, which he thinks he would get by splitting CA into 3 pieces.
jerf 8y ago
Honest questions for discussion: Assuming for the sake of argument that the current status quo is not an option, what would be the particular advantage you are seeking in creating such a structure rather than just having three states? (Obviously the status quo is an option, the default one in some sense, but since that probably dominates a rational conversation I'm discarding it to get somewhere interesting.) Would it be advantageous for, say, Vermont and Rhode Island to create such a superstructure? How would you address the question of redundancy? We've got a couple centuries now of the line between federal, state, and municipality to go off of, and since you're presumably not going to create more government powers through this mechanism, how do you propose redrawing the relevant powers in a way that makes sense?
yellowapple 8y ago
In theory that'd be "counties", but quite a few California counties don't seem to think they have sufficient autonomy (hence this proposal, the Jefferson proposal, etc.).

Communalism

Each US state consists of numerous counties, each typically with a city county seat. California for example is broken into 58 counties. Oakland is the Alameda county seat. To follow that premise somewhat, you'd try to give the three new giant regions more independence vs a traditional county. You'd be looking to create a new super-structure above county and below state; the super regions would govern over the counties within (or you'd abolish all the counties and just essentially create three counties in California). If you move to full autonomous (within the US Federal system), then you're really going to have to make them proper separate states or change to the status Puerto Rico has (unincorporated US territory).

csours 8y ago

Sure. States have a lot of power under the constitution - I'm sure a state could do something like that... but that's not the point of this effort. Tim Draper pretty clearly wants more Conservative Senators, which he thinks he would get by splitting CA into 3 pieces.

jerf 8y ago

Honest questions for discussion: Assuming for the sake of argument that the current status quo is not an option, what would be the particular advantage you are seeking in creating such a structure rather than just having three states? (Obviously the status quo is an option, the default one in some sense, but since that probably dominates a rational conversation I'm discarding it to get somewhere interesting.) Would it be advantageous for, say, Vermont and Rhode Island to create such a superstructure? How would you address the question of redundancy? We've got a couple centuries now of the line between federal, state, and municipality to go off of, and since you're presumably not going to create more government powers through this mechanism, how do you propose redrawing the relevant powers in a way that makes sense?

yellowapple 8y ago

In theory that'd be "counties", but quite a few California counties don't seem to think they have sufficient autonomy (hence this proposal, the Jefferson proposal, etc.).