'New California' Movement Wants To Create a 51st State (wqad.com)

PolygamousRanchKid, Ayano, and an anonymous reader all shared the same story. Tribune Media reports: A group has launched a campaign to divide California into two states. It isn't the first attempt to split California, but unlike a failed campaign in 2016 to divide California into six states, the campaign to create New California would split the state into one made up of rural counties and another made up of coastal counties.
USA Today provides some context: Breaking up California remains no easy task: A formal secession means getting approval from both Congress and California's legislature itself. But that hasn't stopped folks from trying. Hundreds of times... Monday's declaration of "the State of New California" marked the latest in more than 200 long-shot efforts to split the Golden State. All so far have failed.

Comments

Re:Only if Puerto Rico gets statehood, too

[Ziktar]

Your memory is off:

"Those who voted overwhelmingly chose statehood by 97%; turnout, however, was 23%, a historically low figure."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:I am 100% In Favor Of This Proposal

[whoever57]

Honestly most of California has basically nothing at all in common with the coastal regions they want to separate from

A state consisting of rural California only would be one of, if not the poorest state in the nation.

The video shows the area around San Jose as part of the New California, which is, I assume an attempt to gerrymander a new state in which San Jose pays the bills, while the rest of the state sets the policies.

The "movement" is two guys

[PopeRatzo]

Paul Preston and Tom Reed are two cranks who have been at this game since the early 90s. If you go to their "movement's" website you will find that their various "regional committees" are almost completely made up of Paul Preston and Tom Reed. Their previous efforts consisted entirely of raising money.

The funny part of this story is that Russian bots were pushing the story on Twitter and Facebook that this "New California" officially seceded from the rest of the state. Scamsters selling swag quickly got in on the fun:

https://twitter.com/GrantJKidn...

State secession has long been a favorite trope of the Russian bots. I'm sure you remember this story about how they pushed for Texas to secede. Turns out their Facebook page was run by the "Internet Research Agency" run out of St Petersburg, Russia.

https://extranewsfeed.com/how-...

https://washingtonmonthly.com/...

No collusion...

http://www.businessinsider.com...

There's historical precedent for splitting a state

[hey!]

In 1819 the Massachusetts legislature voted to enable Maine to become an independent state. However is this would have changed the balance in the Senate between slave and free states, Congress wouldn't admit Maine without admitting an additional slave state, which is what you probably learned in school was called the "Missouri Compromise".

However ... since Republicans currently control Congress, a different limitation comes into play, From Article IV Section 3 Clause 1:

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

Since California is an overwhelmingly Democratic state, it's highly unlikely that the legislature will consent to increasing Republican power in the US Senate.

TL;DR: It can be done, but it won't happen unless another, Democratic-leaning state is admitted (e.g. Puerto Rico).

Re:Better idea: Split the US in two countries

[psmoot]

Better idea: Split the US in two countries. The Red States and the Blue States. And build a wall between the two.

It's more like Blue Cities and Red Rural. Almost all rural areas vote Republican and all urban areas vote Democratic. It's hard to find states which are entirely red or blue. It would be pretty difficult to wall off all the major cities from their surroundings.

Re:Let's keep things even

[stomv]

Austin is more populous than five different US states.

Re: Which billionaire is funding this one?

[PopeRatzo]

So if you ignore the astronomical cost of housing in California, the remaining expenses are comparable. You're shameless.

The place we sold in Chicago to buy the place in Houston which we sold to buy a place in California were all about the same price.

The place here in Cali has about 15% less floor space than the place in Houston, but the yard is about three times bigger. Considering the weather here is absolutely perfect compared to the shittiest weather you can imagine in Houston, having the outdoors is preferable. People who don't live on the California coast have no idea how beautiful it really is. There's mountains, an ocean, clear weather, clean air. Houston air always smells like creosote.

There's a reason California gets more tourists than any other state in the US.

https://youtu.be/Yy57Xdk9u0o

You actually went too far

[aepervius]

"While we have far more protections for small voter blocks" I would argue with the electoral college, that you went a step too far, and that at least for the current set up of presidential election, you have a tyranny of the minority. In most place of the world where a president is decided by election , 1 person is 1 vote. But with your electoral college, this is not true and small state people count for more than big state. In fact I can't think of any other democracy where that happens. The result is actually that the minority can decide election against popular vote. And that's royally screwed from a democratic point of view IMO.