Breaking California into 6 States...good idea or bad idea?

Split it into 2 failed states. Norcal failed state and Socal failed state. Better yet, give Socal back to Mexico and we don't have to change any flags.

Great idea. We need 10 more Democrats in the Senate.

I think Central California might actually carry a Repub here and there. Maybe two Repubs at the same time once in a while.

So 8-10 new Dem Senators and 0-2 new Repup Senators?

Because the libs will be picking up more Democratic votes, it just might pass a vote in Congress.

how would they settle the debt of the state of kalifornia before splitting? would never work.

alanson wrote:

Great idea. We need 10 more Democrats in the Senate.

I'm fairly certain the way they're drawing the state lines would create 2 solidly democratic states, 2 solidly republican, and 2 battle ground states. I know absolutely nothing about the details, but I'm 100% positive it would be a good thing.

As I understand it, this must pass a popular vote in California before it goes any further. So, does anyone think this would pass a vote in CA.

Thinking strictly as an academic, this would tear apart the UC system, the CalState system, as well as the largest (and arguably most successful) junior/community college system in the nation.

sparky polastry wrote:

I'm fairly certain the way they're drawing the state lines would create 2 solidly democratic states, 2 solidly republican, and 2 battle ground states. I know absolutely nothing about the details, but I'm 100% positive it would be a good thing.

Two solidly republican? Out of my own ignorance, which would those two be? I could only see Central Cali going republican.

Here is the map of the proposed new States:

3 states makes sense.

The Stache wrote:

Two solidly republican? Out of my own ignorance, which would those two be? I could only see Central Cali going republican.

Here is the map of the proposed new States:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/07/15/six-californias-tim-draper/12661161/

I believe Jefferson would be Republican, although it may be closer than I assumed. The pot smoking meccas of Humboldt and Mendocino are heavily democratic, but the rest of that region is very, very republican, and they do outnumber Humboldt and Mendocino by a decent margin overall. The way they've drawn South California to include San Diego, Orange County, East LA and the Imperial Valley would make it very evenly split.

"South California" would also lean republican. San Diego is highly conservative and the southern parts of the L.A. greater area are also fairly conservative. Only orange county out of those listed is very liberal at all.

"Jefferson" would be hard to predict without solid data because it is so libertarian, so it could go either way. Probably falls to republicans though.

Splitting the state makes perfect sense. It is too large geographically and by population - there is simply no way for state senators to reasonably represent state interests.

It has no chance of passing, so there's that.

I'm not sure how this is magically going to "solve the state's water issues", because it's not like this is going to create water out of thin air. It's going to solve it in the sense that some of the new states will have all the water and the southern California states will have none. Which isn't exactly a "solution".

It's also going to split California into some really rich states and really poor states. What's in it for the latter? Why would the people living there want this?

typical runner wrote:

"South California" would also lean republican. San Diego is highly conservative and the southern parts of the L.A. greater area are also fairly conservative. Only orange county out of those listed is very liberal at all.

What are you talking about? Orange County is one of the most reliable bastions of conservative voters in the entire state. And LA county hasn't voted republican in, like, forever

facticity of da sitchiashun wrote:

Split it into 2 failed states. Norcal failed state and Socal failed state. Better yet, give Socal back to Mexico and we don't have to change any flags.

You do know that CA is in the top ten of GDP per capita of all the states, and that includes the more productive, more educated, and more Democratic urban centers compensating for the poorer, less educated, and more Republican rural areas.

The failed states in the US are the Republican states in the south, Idaho, and a bunch of Federal-farm-subsidy-sucking whites in the Midwest.

This is never going to happen. We haven't had a new state in this country in 55 years. Why should the rest of the country give this guy what he wants?

Most of this billionaire's complaints about responsiveness could at least theoretically be met by a restructuring of California state government, which is perhaps what he should be shooting for.

Better idea is for the Pacific Coast states to break off from USA--CA, OR, WA---they have great beaches, deserts and mountains, great businesses (Nike, Microsoft, Google, eBay, banks, construction firms etc), great universities (Stanford, USC, UCLA, CalTech), movie industry, music industry, great ethnic food, California girls, etc. We'll let Vancouver and Baja join in, and Hawaii and AK if they want. Rest of the country would be screwed.

Well, the 'poor' eastern and northern states could hold LA and San Diego hostage over water. That's the real reason this would never fly: the 'rich' southern cities would die of thirst if they had to pay to import water from another state.

yeah, w/o the hoover dam LA doesn't exist as we know it. i think they get like 70% of their power from there.