Posted on by Californiacontrarian

CAL 3

According to the San Jose Mercury News, apparently enough signatures have been collected to put an initiative on the ballot that would split the present state of California into three separate states. The new state of “California” would include Los Angeles and would basically extend up along the Pacific Ocean to Monterrey. The new proposed state of “Southern California” would include Orange County, San Diego and the counties in the mid and the eastern part of the state up to just past Fresno. The new proposed state of “Northern California” would include San Francisco, Sacramento, and all the way to the Nevada and the Oregon state lines. Of course the people of California can express their opinion through this ballot measure, but the ultimate determination would be made by the U.S. Congress.
Two questions:
First of all which way would those of you who live in California vote?
And secondly . . . Let’s assume that this proposed ballot measure passes in California, which way do you think the vote would go in the U.S. Congress?
To be clear, this splitting of a state to make two separate states has been done in the past, so this splitting up of California is not without precedence.
To analyze the political effects of this proposed division, let’s look at the effect on both the U.S House and the U.S. Senate. There would be little if any effect in the U.S. House of Representatives because the representation in the House is determined by a state’s population, and since the population of California would be the same both before and after the proposed division.
However, the big change would be in the U.S. Senate, because each state gets two senators. So the “new California” would now be three separate states, and so would be represented by six U.S.Senators – two from each of the new states. So if two of the three new states were to vote for Democrats, the balance in the Senate would in essence remain the same as it is now with +2 senators (present California Senators) for the Democrats. The Republicans could benefit would be if two of the three proposed new states were to vote in two Republicans each, or if the voters would elect three Democrats and three Republicans combined in the three new states. Neither of these scenarios is likely to happen in the near future, if ever, so I would assume that the Republicans in Congress would be against this CAL 3 proposal. However, keep in mind that the House now is Republican, but could easily be flipped in November. Would the Democrats think that this is a way to strengthen their Democratic representation in the Senate?
To even things out, perhaps Texas should split into “East Texas” and “West Texas?”
But until that happens, I will be voting “No” on CAL 3.

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