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California Might Split Into 3 States. The US Should Only Keep One of Them.
This November, California voters will decide if they want their once Golden State split into three. Wracked by high debt, ridiculous taxes, and severe economic disparity, this plan is intended to give residents more control of their state government.
The ballot measure was drafted by Tim Draper, a Silicon Valley VC gazillionaire responsible for two past efforts to divide Cali six ways. His modified plan for an unholy trinity is considered an improvement since each new state would be more economically sustainable.
“Three states will get us better infrastructure, better education and lower taxes,” Draper said. “States will be more accountable to us and can cooperate and compete for citizens.”
On Tuesday, elections officials projected that Draper got more than enough signatures to make the ballot.
The new map would create a centrist Southern California, including much of the agricultural heartland, Riverside, and San Diego; a leftist state called California, running up the coast from LA to Monterey; and an essentially communist state called Northern California above them both. (A better name for the latter would be “Woke-ifornia.”)
If voters support the new map, both houses of the California Legislature would need to confirm it. Then it would go through the courts, the US Congress, and whoever sews new stars on the flag.
Quickly looking at the map, the problem for conservatives is quickly apparent. Instead of offering two bat-guano leftist senators, we’d end up with at least four and as many as six. No bueno.
Nevertheless, I support the plan wholeheartedly. Voters should split Cali thrice, have Sacramento give its blessing, and ship the paperwork to DC. At that point, Congress should endorse it … but only allow Southern California to remain in the union.
Let’s be honest: Californian progressives aren’t too happy with this whole American experiment. They regularly flout federal law while floating secession fanfic like #Calexit. The Supreme Court should cite “irreconcilable differences” and let the wayward spouse follow its heart. (Read all about it in the steamy Kamala Harris memoir, Eat, Love, Don’t Pray.)
Meanwhile, the pro-military San Diegans, uber-rich OC-ers, and salt-of-the-earth inlanders can finally escape Sacramento’s boot.
Perhaps the best part of this plan is that the cast-off Calis can finally prove to us dummies that anti-American socialism really works — it just hasn’t been tried yet.
One last note to surrounding states: We’re gonna need a wall. A big, beautiful wall.
Published in General
Ew. No.
We’d lose Cupertino and Hollywood. Then we’d have to hear about the trade deficit America runs with these other countries. Then some populist economic illiterate president would come along and say that the solution is tariffs to protect the video game industry in Rhode Island and the film industry in Shreveport.
No thanks. I like being able to easily get technology and apps and media. I don’t need other people interfering with all that because its on the other side of some border.
Also, I want to be able to travel freely to California if I wished to for some reason. It’s bad enough the crap I have to go through now coming back from Canada. We need less of that garbage, not more.
Not by much. Electoral College representation is equal to a state’s house plus Senate numbers. I would think the House numbers would stay pretty much the same; presumably the three states combined would just have Old California’s House seats distributed among them, and even if all four new Senate seats were Kamala Harris blue (which isn’t as certain as some people think,) that wouldn’t be enough to turn any recent election.
The map reminds me of the repackaged subprime mortgages during the Great Recession.
Playing musical chairs with the same old stuff, although the game musical chairs at least allows for some elimination.
Jefferson would make a nice name for a state, but call me back when they decide to name it Reagan.
Look, Reagan was wonderful and all, but he would be the last person to put himself up there with Thomas Jefferson.
Also, I think it’s probably a good rule not to name states after political figures unless they’ve been dead for at least 90 years.
I’d really rather not have Illinois split in two and the Chicago half named Obama.
Might as well do it.
Without an end to all immigration to the US for at least a decade (preferably five decades), California-style leftists are going to rule us sooner or later anyway.
Look at voting patterns in the border counties and big cities of Texas. Look at New Mexico, already minority-majority. Look at Nevada. Watch Arizona.
We allowed this to happen for short-term reasons and because we were enthralled by beautiful, utopian, abstract ideals and principles. We first allowed our history to be perverted and then taught that way to our children; now their futures look bleak and all that our side’s intellectuals can advise is to keep doing what we’ve been doing. (See Jay Nordlinger’s “Conservative Ideas and Conservative Confidence” in National Review.)
We’re “Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to press on.”
Well, ideas have consequences, as conservatives are fond of saying. The end-products of some of the gossamer ideas of mainstream, axiomatic conservatism – that all men are created equal, that the market is wise, that race is irrelevant – are now coming into view and they spell a diminution, not an expansion, of our prospects and those of our posterity…exactly who we were originally charged by the Founders to safeguard.
Remember when we used to boast, “From Sea to Shining Sea”? As this OP shows, America is getting ready to give up that part of our heritage. And with the useless intellectual and political leaders we have, traditional American conservatives should prepare for a lot more retreating.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that your county solution is unconstitutional, in the 1960s.
The Warren Court ruled that states could not have the same representative system as the federal government, because that violated the “one man, one vote” rule embedded in the penumbra of the 14th Amendment.
The Republican Party and National Review have been strenuously trying to roll back that anti-conservative ruling for years. Here’s a list of the speeches and articles attacking this usurpation of state sovereignty:
Give me a minute – I’m sure it’s here somewhere….
It is worth noting that it is not a problem for the senator count from the Californias to go from 2 democrats to 4 if the other state produced republican senators, as the net remains D+2.
The real problem is that I doubt even that version of Southern California would consistently produce republicans at a national level.
Q: Why three states? Why not four states?
A: Because three states maintains the dominance of the cities over the rural areas, while four states would let most of rural California have their own state.
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/maps-population-distribution-visualized/
I would feel so bad for those poor folks in Northern Cali. Most of the folks outside of the communist centers would literally be enslaved. It would make the current disgrace that is California politics look tame.
This is all a ruse to gain 4 more communist Senators.
On Flag Day, I endorse keeping the canton as it is: 50 stars for 50 states with guaranteed republican forms of government. The two socialist entities should be invited to CALEXIT.
And 4 states would produce 6 to 8 Democrat senators instead of just the 2 we have now.
The real solution for California is to elimate their bizarre primary system. No, I do not support California splitting into three states. Secession, maybe – but not the three-state solution . . .
I know that SCOTUS ruled it illegal, which I mentioned ——> “The simplest, albeit, illegal, solution”
But a boy can dream, can’t he? Then I could labeled a “Dreamer”.
That’s ridiculous, Fred. It would be named Daley-Obama.
In a vacuum I support splitting up huge states.
In practice there is almost no way to do it without benefiting one side politically.
Do more than dream, conservative.
The Supreme Court ruled your concept – and the way many sovereign states had set themselves up in their own state constitutions – “unconstitutional.”
But that’s just their opinion of the meaning of words on a piece a paper, isn’t it?
If you and four others, all of you sitting on the Court, say the exact opposite, then your concept – Voila! – becomes constitutional.
So why isn’t overturning this ruling a litmus test for anyone who wants to be appointed to the federal bench?
Because conservatives are enthralled by abstractions and ideals, rather than by the customs, mores, traditions, and history of the United States of America, which they’ve been taught to be somewhat ashamed of.
So are liberals; but their abstractions and ideals motivate them to enact their beliefs into law. Conservatives, on the other hand, are motivated to hope that things will all work out if we believe in the right things.
Dreaming conservatives will continue to hope for but not demand the best – for example, with litmus tests for judicial appointees – until by a 5-to-4 majority of Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor and the first transsexual on the High Court, it is decided that the Senate of the US and the Electoral College both violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment – “one person, one vote” – and are
“Unconstitutional.”
Conventional wisdom says support for ballot initiatives tends to drop over the course of a campaign, so to have a good chance of passing, the Yes side needs to poll well above 50%. Initial polling for this measure shows support at just 17%, with 72% opposed and only 10% undecided.
Stranger things have happened, but in terms of uphill battles, this is a sprint up Mt. Everest.
The only scenario where I could see this passing is if President Trump comes out strongly against it, then I could see a lot of Californians voting for it just to signal their Resistance to all things Trump…
i wonder how we can get him to do that…
You don’t think that El Dorado County is still pretty conservative? Btw I live in Cameron Park, just up the road from you.
(accidental duplicate comnent)
Oh thanks for being a responsible consumer. Some of us that provide these tech goodies aren’t happy with the ethical direction the industry is going in, but I guess it’s all fine if your an anarcho capitalist.
Why do you the idea is so popular around here? If we split off, the logging industry can come back. There’s your economic base.
Sure there is. Split up California and Texas at the same time. And while we’re at it, New York and Florida.
To me the most logical break is the county line that runs straight across from Obispo co. to AZ.
We’d get San Bernardino and they’d get Fresno.
RyanFalcone (View Comment):
I would feel so bad for those poor folks in Northern Cali. Most of the folks outside of the communist centers would literally be enslaved. It would make the current disgrace that is California politics look tame.This is all a ruse to gain 4 more communist Senators.
Indeed, I’m one of them. On the plus side, it would be easier to convince my wife to “move back to the US” than it has been to “move out of California”.
I think the State of Jefferson would likley do well in the Marijuana trade. At least judging from the activities of my neighbors.
FIFY
I will continue my efforts to get people to use Calgone (take them away) to refer to California leaving. I didn’t come up with it, but when I first saw it I found it brilliant and something everyone needs to adopt.