Petition to Split California Into Six States Gets Green Light

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Petition to Split California Into Six States Gets Green Light

 

Draper's plan splits California into six new states. (KGO/ABC News)

 

A venture capitalist who feels colossal California is too unwieldy to govern is proposing to split it into six separate states, and Secretary of State Debra Bowen has given him the green light to start collecting petition signatures.

Tim Draper filed a ballot initiative in December stating that because of recent social and economic changes California has become “nearly ungovernable.”

He proposed dividing California into six states. San Diego and Orange County would make up “South California.” “West California” would include Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, while Bakersfield, Fresno and Stockton would make up the larger “Central California.” San Francisco and San Jose would be in the new “Silicon Valley.” “North California” would include the Sacramento area, and “Jefferson” would be home to the Redding and Eureka areas.

“California as it is is ungovernable,” Draper told ABC News today. “It is more and more difficult for Sacramento to keep up with the social issues from the various regions of California. With six Californias, people will be closer to their state governments, and states can get a refresh”.

Brendan Nyhan, Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, isn’t sold on the idea. “Splitting California into six states would raise all sorts of concerns about the partisan balance of the senate. I can’t imagine this would ever go anywhere” said Nyhan.

Nyhan says a plan like this would surface many issues. Things like water policy, agricultural policy, and even the electoral college would all change if this plan were to take action. 

The plan aims to settle California’s financial issues after the separation of the states. If things can’t be resolved, each state would receive a portion of the state’s debts based on the newly created state’s population.

If the federal government approves creating six new states, “all tax collections and spending by the existing State of California would end, with its assets and liabilities divided among the new states,” Secretary of State Debra Bowen said in a statement on Tuesday.

That would leave decisions regarding taxes and public spending of the new states up to its elected leaders.

If California were its own separate country, it would have the eighth-largest economy in the world.

In order to make this plan a reality, Draper needs to start collecting signatures in order to qualify the petition for a ballot. He needs the signatures of 807,615 registered voters in 150 days, making his deadline July 18, 2014.

“We are going to put together a grass roots effort to get signatures,” Draper said.  “It looks very promising since there are already several movements to create new states here”.

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Secession movement in New York pushes for Big Apple to split from Upstate

 

When Frank Sinatra sang “New York, New York,” he may have been on to something.

A movement is afoot to split New York into two regions — upstate and downstate — to acknowledge the gaping philosophical differences and improve representation.

“I’ve lived in New York all my life, and upstate and downstate have two different philosophies of life,” said John Bergener, an Albany County resident and organizer of the two New Yorks effort. “And it seems like they’re always in conflict.”

Campaigns for “secession” or a 51st state have been on the rise since the 2012 presidential election — see California, Colorado and Maryland — but the New York movement has a twist.

Instead of splitting New York into two distinct states, advocates want one state controlled by two autonomous regional governments.

 

The state would retain a “token” presence, funded by the 3 percent sales tax, and would remain united for federal purposes such as the Electoral College and congressional seats. But the power on all state matters would be transferred to the regions.

The downstate region would be called New York and include the counties of Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens, Richmond, Nassau, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester — basically New York City and its neighboring counties, including Long Island.

The upstate region tentatively would be named New Amsterdam — after the 17th-century Dutch settlement on Manhattan Island that eventually became New York City — and would comprise the state’s remaining 53 counties, including the state capital of Albany.

Upstate New York is less prosperous and populous than the Big Apple region. About 7 million of the state’s 19 million residents would be in the proposed New Amsterdam.

The plan is the brainchild of the Upstate Conservative Coalition, a tea party-style group that last month launched a Facebook page called Divide NYS into New Amsterdam & New York, and a website, NewAmsterdamNY.org.

Mr. Bergener said the two-regions proposal would be much easier than splitting New York into two states, which would require an act of Congress. The two-regions plan could be implemented by votes of the state legislature in two sessions, he said.

The idea also could be adopted in a constitutional convention. New Yorkers vote every 20 years on whether to hold a state constitutional convention, and the next vote is slated for November 2017.

This isn’t the first time New Yorkers have advocated a division along upstate-downstate lines.

“If you search ‘divide New York state’ on Google, you’ll find dozens of proposals,” said Mr. Bergener. “None has ever come to fruition. The legislature never acts on it because they know Congress won’t act on it. With this one, we feel like we’ve found a loophole.”

Tension is growing between the two regions over a pair of high-profile policy issues: hydraulic fracturing and pre-kindergarten education.

Many upstaters are fuming over the recent refusal by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, to lift a 6-year-old de facto moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas. The industry is booming in neighboring Pennsylvania but been stunted in an upstate region, which is struggling from the loss of manufacturing jobs.

The Cuomo administration is waiting until next year for the results of a state health study, but Mr. Bergener said those in the Southern Tier and other areas that would benefit from oil and gas drilling suspect a political motivation.

“The theory is that our current governor doesn’t want upstate to grow because then you’d get more Republicans,” Mr. Bergener said.

Upstate conservatives also were steamed over the governor’s Jan. 17 declaration that pro-lifers “have no place in the state of New York.”

Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal for a tax increase on wealthy residents to pay for universal pre-kindergarten in the five boroughs has been criticized by state officials, including Mr. Cuomo, who say it would widen the gap between upstate and downstate.

“I know the ‘tale of two cities.’ The answer to the tale of two cities is not to create two states,” Mr. Cuomo said in a WNYC radio interview Friday.

Of course, that’s where he and members of the two-regions coalition disagree.

“It’s an unusual idea,” said Mr. Bergener. “I’ve searched and I can’t find anyone else who’s tried this before. So we’re the first.”