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Plan to split California into three states earns spot on November ballot
- api 8y agoSplitting LA and OC is idiotic. OC is the suburbs of LA. Of course the whole thing is fairly unlikely and not really a good idea.
- mc32 8y agoNot really, DC and Virginia are well integrated (economically). Northern New Jersey and NYC are integrated, despite state borders, so much so they even have common government bodies like the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. I’m all for states to split if it makes sense. Texas, New York (upstate vs downstate), and of course California. The needs are too disparate and varied and could be better served by more attuned regional governments. I know I’ll seriously consider voting for the split. The politics are way too dysfunctional at the state level.
- m_ke 8y agoI wouldn't call Jersey and NYC well integrated. If Jersey City was part of New York we'd be able to take the subway to Newark . Instead we get to deal with fake traffic on the GW because Jersey decided to elect Chris Christie. As a New Yorker I'd be all for trading upstate NYC for part of north Jersey.
- murph-almighty 8y agoIf the 7 extended to Newark my commute would be amazing...
- mc32 8y agoI more or less mean economically. The issue you illustrate exists in the Bay Area, San Mateo county didn’t sign on to Bart in the 50s and 60s when things were being planned out. We are still experiencing the ramifications of that. No state borders involved.
- Bahamut 8y agoAm I missing something here? One can easily take the NJ Transit from Penn Station to Newark.
- briandear 8y agoPATH train anyone?
- adestefan 8y agoDC and Virginia are not well integrated. It was monumental effort to finally get sustained funding for Metro from all three jurisdictions that took over 40 years to accomplish.
- magduf 8y agoWe already have too many states as it is (50). If any states split up, we need to have some others merge so the total never exceeds 50. DC and northern Virginia should merge into a single state, but also include all of central Maryland (including Baltimore). Western MD should go to WV and eastern shore MD should combine with eastern shore VA and merge with Delaware. New Jersey should be completely eliminated. Northern NJ should merge with NYC and other parts of its metro area and form a new state. Southern NJ should merge with Philly and form a new state. CT (the part not taken by NYC), RI, and MA should merge. VT, NH, and Maine should merge. Wyoming should be broken apart and merged with the surrounding states. CA should break apart, but should merge with the surrounding states: the southern part should merge with Las Vegas, for instance. The far northern part should merge with Oregon. Here's an idea from the 70s about how to redraw the state boundaries: http://mentalfloss.com/article/57444/map-only-38-states http://mentalfloss.com/article/57444/map-only-38-states
- mc32 8y agoThere is merit to this reorg. Unfortch, we’re not the U.K. so we can’t just decide this overnight. It would be monumental and it would never happen. The splitting and merging in some cases would make sense, but would only be successful if done organically via grass roots.
- magduf 8y ago>There is merit to this reorg. Unfortch, we’re not the U.K. so we can’t just decide this overnight. It would be monumental and it would never happen. I agree completely. But it's costing us dearly. Just look at how bad public transit is in the DC area with the Metro system: this is caused by it being under the control of 3 states (counting DC as a state here). Having metro areas split over state boundaries causes massive problems like this, increases costs enormously, and makes the country uncompetitive. Eventually it's going to result in America not being the strongest economy in the world, and maybe even a not-so-important has-been like Britain. The politics in this country are fundamentally broken, and the long-term results of this are not going to be good.
- mikece 8y agoIf the state does split in three I think it will only take about five minutes for the counties who want to split off and form Jefferson to submit an initiative to split Northern California. Likewise, Orange County and San Diego, while more similar to each other in ideology than Los Angeles or San Francisco, will be chomping at the bit to disassociate from each other as well. Honestly, I don't think the state will ever split, but if it does a simple split like the 3 Californias proposal would make the most sense.
- Aloha 8y agoAs someone who grew up in Orange County - most of Orange County by land is closely culturally tied to Los Angeles, not San Diego. The dividing line is the 55 freeway - everything south of the 55 is 'behind the orange curtain' everything north is part of LA, culturally.
- shipman05 8y ago"States will be more accountable to us and can cooperate and compete for citizens." Translation: a corporate tax race-to-the-bottom that ensures lower tax revenues for all three states with zero net-new jobs.
- exabrial 8y agoWhy not include San Francisco in the coastal state?
- adestefan 8y agoBecause this is nothing more than attempt to add 4 more Senators that have a chance of being won by Republicans. It's the same reason why "Southern California" includes OC.
- neonIcon 8y agoThat's interesting, as I see it as an attempt to do the opposite and add more democrat seats. "Southern California" is realistically the only one of the three with the possibility of going red. If you were to remove San Francisco from "Northern California" and place it back in "California" then I could see it possibly going red at that point.
- LyndsySimon 8y agoThat doesn't make sense... This would add a net of four more Senators, which only might go Republican. Considering that California is generally considered solidly blue as it stands, this would almost certainly result in the balance shifting toward the Democrats in the Senate.
- wang_li 8y agoParts of California are reliably red. If you split them into their own state, their Senators, Representatives, and electoral votes would likely go red.
- LyndsySimon 8y agoI totally get that - I'm very interested in gun rights, and have been at least cursorily aware of the issues in getting carry permits in various California jurisdictions. My point is that the way the state is divided in this proposal all but guarantees that all three will be blue.
- artificial 8y agoThis has come up multiple times over the years and doesn’t have a chance. Good luck!
- throwaway5752 8y agoIt will pass this time for the same reason that Brexit and the US presidential election had the outcomes they did.
- artificial 8y agoShall we place a wager? I'm willing to escrow money on this.
- throwaway5752 8y agoGentleperson's wager. I hope that I'm wrong too much to want to benefit from it. I very much hope it doesn't pass, but I also don't know who is out there working to prevent the sort of tactics that achieved Brexit. It is astonishingly low hanging fruit for anyone that would benefit from this strategic outcome.
- nytesky 8y agoSo what will be the economic engine of Southern California, without LA or SF? Fresno?!
- mc32 8y agoSan Diego is pretty Dynamic but Fresno would make sense for the inland empire.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoI lived there 10 years, and it was obvious the state had multiple different interests. The south wants the north's water, and doesn't pay anything for it. The south is farming; the north, technology. The far north is radical environmentalism; the rest only mildly so. I always used to suggest they split it in two - at Monterey right down the middle, since both halves would want Monterey. There's a fault line splitting it already, so its a natural division as well!
- Teknoman117 8y agoIt's amazing how much energy is consumed pumping water to southern California.
- zupzupper 8y agoOh no you don't! We split at Bakersfield as is custom, and the South gets to keep it. ;)
- bhauer 8y agoI woke up a bit late today because I figured the other 14 million in Los Angeles and San Diego had today's farming chores covered.
- vimy 8y ago"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism." Does anybody have a copy of the article?
- mikece 8y agoIf California does split into different states such that Los Angeles and its water supply are in different states then you have an instant, protracted, bitter, and expensive interstate water rights dispute to pay for. I'm not sure either prospective California would be looking forward to that unless there is a plan in place to share water.
- Nasrudith 8y agoThe only real merit of the plan in my opinion is increased Senate representation to be more representative of people - land doesn't vote. However that would probably cause contagious state Balkinization instead of doing the proper thing and doing away with the colony uniting artifact of fixed representation - which is politically pretty unviable. But this is at the cost of probable administrative efficiency to redundancy and loss of their large size leverage. The sponsors are naked about their bad intentions however - wanting to disrupt bargaining power for sheer selfish reasons. Preventing Medicare bargaining was bad for everyone except special interests.
- tvmalsv 8y agoIf I remember correctly, the senators were originally not elected, but chosen by the state to represent the states' interests, while only the representatives were elected to represent the people's interests. That's why the number of senators doesn't jive with the populations. Each state is then equally represented and of equal importance in the senate.
- zeveb 8y agoIMHO we really ought to repeal the 17th Amendment and return to state appointment of senators. The states need a voice in the federal government, and that voice is supposed to be the Senate. But then, I'd also like to see legislatures appointing electors to the Electoral College …
- magduf 8y ago>we really ought to repeal the 17th Amendment and return to state appointment of senators. This sounds good in theory, but the reason they passed the 17A in the first place was because of widespread corruption in the Senate. >But then, I'd also like to see legislatures appointing electors to the Electoral College … That's not going to fix anything either. What they need to do is replace the Constitution and adopt a Westminster parliament like every other decent democratic republic out there. How many countries have a presidential system like ours? Only a few, and they're ones like El Salvador, not exactly countries you want to emulate.
- rectang 8y agoThe plan is a gerrymander that maximally concentrates people likely to vote Democratic into one state along the coast. Democrats have had enough of gerrymandering, and California is pretty blue these days. This won't pass.
- creaghpatr 8y agoSure but if I'm not mistaken they would gain 4 additional Senators (collectively) which would theoretically 'balance' the fracturing and likely loss of democrat house seats and/or electoral votes. Democrats have a greater disadvantage in the Senate currently so this could be good for them in the short term- they could swing the Senate under the current Congress which is a huge deal. I don't have an opinion on whether that's better or worse, but there are pros and cons. I doubt it will happen but it's a more plausible debate than succession at least.
- rectang 8y agoThe issue is not just Senators. Splitting California is also an electoral college win for Republicans, and a state government win as well. Secession would be a cowardly abandonment of those who are treated poorly in other states.
- throwaway5752 8y agoBingo. It fractures a powerful adversary for the parties pushing this. This comes up all the time with NYC/Long Island and New York (but, curiously, not for Texas or Florida) for the same reason. There are advantages to controlling the largest state in the country, and that advantage would shift to Texas. Since in either outcome this causes distraction and dissension, it's already a victory.
- protomyth 8y agoThere has been talk of splitting Texas into 5 states. Florida has had a South Florida split talks in the past. New York City would be interesting because it seems like a split would really need to cross state lines which would make it really, really difficult.
- zer0faith 8y agoAs an outsider and someone who is not even remotely close to the situation this sounds like a politically motivated move that is justified by unfounded claims.
- mikeash 8y agoLikewise. The whole idea seems to be based on the current California government failing its citizens. And yet California is arguably the most prosperous and successful state in the nation. Why mess with that? I’m pretty sure the answer to that rhetorical question is, because that success and prosperity has happened under liberal policies.
- mikeash 8y agoRussian trolls have pushed the Calexit secession campaign. I wonder if they’re involved in this as well.
- neonIcon 8y agoI can't tell if this is /s or not..
- mikeash 8y agoNot at all. Russian involvement in Calexit is pretty well supported, just search. They’re out to weaken this country by exploiting existing political fault lines. Supporting a plan to split up our most successful and prosperous state fits right into their MO.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoI know who you are (at least as an HN commenter), which is why I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here. But when someone says "X is well known, just search", they're usually peddling some complete nonsense that happens to have a web page that Google knows about. The way you phrased that (and didn't actually supply any evidence) trips the BS detector, at least for me. As I said, I give you the benefit of the doubt, because you don't post that way, and I don't think you meant to here. It's just an unfortunate phrasing, but I thought I'd mention it. As to the substance of your statement: Yes, this fits the pattern. But I don't think they care whether they split California or not. Splitting it doesn't change things very much. (Unlike, say, presidential elections. And on that topic, it occurs to me that we got handed an absolutely horrible choice in 2016. Maybe we ought to be looking more closely for interference in the primaries, not just in the general election.) I think the real goal is to create conflict. This is a nice topic to get everybody all wound up about. I think they'll try to amplify that. Whether or not they're behind the proposal, they'll try to rile up both sides. One of the things to watch for is the reasons that are presented for people to become agitated. Since agitprop is not "organic" (for want of a better word), the reasons given for becoming outraged seem a bit... off. Foreign, even. You think, "everyone's freaking out about this, but it doesn't quite resonate with me". That's a hint that it may be manufactured outrage, rather than real.
- sambull 8y agoWhich of those three states has the water resources?
- amacbride 8y agoAs a 5-generation Californian, I will address this in my native language: "Dude, this is totally lame."
- jdlyga 8y agoSounds good to me. Approved
- mikelward 8y agoI would assume that if it ever happens, it would break into two states: Northern California and Southern California, divided roughly at the 36°30' North parallel, keeping existing county borders. That would place San Francisco, Sacramento, Monterey and Fresno in Northern California, and Los Angeles, San Diego, and Bakersfield in Southern California. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_36°30′_north https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_36°30′_north
- Aloha 8y agoYeah, this makes sense - though I'd shift Inyo and Mono counties to Southern California to prevent contentious two state discussions about water rights.
- Aloha 8y agoAlso as a Native Californian - I question the logic of any proposal that splits the LA area into two states. Orange County is an integral part of the Los Angeles region. If they were just talking about splitting in to two states - Northern California, and Southern California it might be more viable, as there are distinct cultural lines in the state to be drawn - but three states makes no sense to me, especially with the boundaries drawn as they are.
- kapauldo 8y agoTim draper is not a civic planning expert and should be ignored.
- craigg75 8y agoWhy not go one step further and just create their own country, Republic of California. United States is too large as it is. Less is more.
- pinewurst 8y agoReminder that the prime supporter of this is the same person still vociferously defending Theranos and its odious leaders.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Three states will get us better infrastructure, better education and lower taxes Note that “us” in this case refers to different states: the state containing SF will get better infrastructure and education (because of both priorities and money, and, in the case of education, even if it maintains statewide equal per-pupil funding, it won't be equalized with as many poorer regions.) The bright red state that doesn't have SF or LA in it will get lower taxes, at least in the near term, but not better infrastructure or education (safety net programs with federal, state economy driven funding, will get bigger subsidies, though.) The one with LA will probably see the least political change, because LA already dominates the unified state.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]