'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

Which billionaire is funding this one?

[HangingChad]

Splitting California's electoral votes is a right wing wet dream. Makes you wonder if it's the Koch family or the Mercers behind this push. Or some combination of billionaires and Russian foreign intelligence.

Re:Which billionaire is funding this one?

[Hetero]

Definitely the Russians. If they pull this off (and sources tell me they can), they will take all of California's natural resources, Gazprom will build a pipeline over the Pacific Ocean to North Korea, and California will be left as a mere desert. Trust me, I had a convo with EditorDavid, and he said *his* sources told him exactly this but was obligated to not reveal them.

Sounds like the perfect KGB job to me.

Re:Which billionaire is funding this one?

[skam240]

I bet the Liberals in every major Southern urban area get tired of their right wing state governments too.

Please note that unlike yourself, I have chosen to not confabulate a political point of view I often disagree with, with an extremeist ideology.

Re:Which billionaire is funding this one?

[whoever57]

It's also the wet dream of everyone in the area desiring it, to be free of the oppressive liberal extremism that pays the bills in California

FTFY

Re:Which billionaire is funding this one?

[macsimcon]

Let's review: Wilson couldn't fix California, and neither could the Governator. But Governor Moonbeam did, and now the state is out of the hole, growing again, and projecting a surplus, all from RAISING TAXES.

States like Kansas, Wisconsin, and Iowa cut taxes and are now failing, increasing their deficits.

Sure looks like "Commiefornia" did it right, and those red states full of morons did it wrong.

Re:Which billionaire is funding this one?

[SvnLyrBrto]

The reality is that California is not quite so liberal as it might appear from the outside. Remember, it's the state that gave the country both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. It's just that, unless you're a universally-beloved, larger-than-life, action hero immigrant from Austria, the Republican *name* is political poison. Pete "How I hate the Hispanics; let me count the 187 ways." Wilson saw to that in the 1990s when he married the "R" on the ballot to a campaign of hate, discrimination, and bigotry against the state's fastest-growing demographic (I believe the word he was looking for afterward was: "oops".).

But at the end of the day, we *DID* vote to recall and depose a democratic governor in favor of a Republican not long ago at all. And Schwarzenegger handily accomplished much of his agenda and won re-election besides. We also keep re-electing DINOs like Pelosi and Feinstein to congress. And even here in San Francisco, the conservative candidate wins surprisingly (to outsiders, I guess) often. You simply have to ignore the stated party affiliations (Republican being a dirty word.) and compare-and-contrast the politics of the candidates themselves. Consider the mayoral office: Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom (Both the occupying the political right.) defeated Tom Ammiano and Matt Gonzalez (the leftists) in their respective mayoral elections. (Their first elections, that is. We do seem to have a tradition of rosters of only complete space-cases running against mayoral incumbents.). Ed Lee was no progressive and was considered by many to be another DINO. And in my own district for state senate, Scott Wiener (the conservative) defeated Jane Kim (the liberal) for the seat in Sacramento. It's just that both of them had to run as Democrats because, as seen to by Pete Wilson, running as a Republican is political death for anyone who'd not a cyborg sent back in time to kill Sarah and/or John Connor.

Re: Which billionaire is funding this one?

[RightwingNutjob]

Today no. In ten or twenty years, who knows? Three decades ago, California was a solidly red state that had Republican governors and voted Republican in nearly every presidential election. A few decades of demographic churn pulled it the other way. Who's to say a few more decades of demographic changes won't do the opposite. It's getting pretty damned expensive to live in much of California and people will move away. Are the people most likely to move because of housing prices likely to vote Democrat or Republican? Hard to say. Time will tell.

Re:Which billionaire is funding this one?

[mschwanke97402]

You fail to understand democracy. The concept is not, we lost the election burn the place to the ground, the concept is the other side won, they get to govern, meanwhile we rebuild from the grass roots, one voter and one district at a time. California had a Republican Governor not that long ago. IIRC, there was also a split legislature not that long ago too. Also the dems do not have a super-majority in congress. That is federal. California has an Assembly and a Senate.

Re: Which billionaire is funding this one?

[PopeRatzo]

My guess is that what you mean is that it's not that much more expensive for YOU (retired; little/no taxable income) to live in whatever it is YOU consider to be "the most beautiful part of California" (likely somewhere that's not close to a real job market, unlike Houston). Otherwise, this is simply nonsense.

I'm semi-retired, but my income is not that different from when I worked. My wife is still working, and her job here in California pays a lot better than her professorship at Rice University.

There is a lovely job market here in California. And the job market back in Houston is no longer what it once was. The energy sector jobs are not in boom mode any more. The thing that's keeping Houston afloat is the magnificent Medical Center, which is now the #1 industry in Houston.

Real estate is more expensive here in Cali, but we sold a place/bought a place, so it doesn't really figure into our expenses. Income tax is high here, but property taxes are much lower than in Texas. Food is much cheaper here (and much, much better). Gasoline is more expensive, but since we live a short bike ride from work and the beach, we drive a lot less. In Houston, you can't go three miles without getting on an expressway. The entire city of Houston is paved over with 12-lane highways that are poorly maintained. The unit price of utilities is more expensive in California, but since you don't have to heat or air condition anything, it doesn't matter. In Houston, you have to air condition 10 months out of the year (new houses in Houston don't even have windows that open).

So, you can live in beautiful place with beautiful weather or an ugly place with horrible weather. It's not that different economically.

Oh, and weed is legal here. And there's surfing.

Re:Which billionaire is funding this one?

[skam240]

"The problem is, a couple densely populated areas are steering the entire state"

That's not a bug, that's a feature. Welcome to voting and republican democracy. While we have far more protections for small voter blocks than any other first world country (minorities, although not necessarily in the racial sense) the simple fact is that generally speaking the few don't get to govern, the many do.

What you seem to advocating for is governance by a minority.

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

Only if Puerto Rico gets statehood, too

[jordanjay29]

All of these split-state movements make no sense as long as we're keeping Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands in territory hell. If anyone deserves statehood, it's these places, not some disgruntled counties in a long-established state.

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/...

Obio0vusly republicans

[kfh227]

That state has the most electoral votes and it is always a democratic state. If they split it into 6, they could probably get 2 of those new states to be republican states.

What horse crap. Can we do that with Florida too?

Re:Obio0vusly republicans

[serviscope_minor]

the only parts in CA which are liberal are the cities, everyone else is just forced along for the ride

So the vast majority of californians are liberal then and the tiny minority remaining are just forced along for the ride?

I don't why country dwellers think that city folk count for less just because they live closer together. Your value as a person is not proportional ot the amonut of land you own.

Better idea: Split the US in two countries

[Anonymous Coward]

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

It is obvious that conservatives and liberals have two fundamentaly different and irreconcilable ways of seeing the world, two completely different and opposite cultures, and that their union will never be anything else but a neverending compromise between the two that satisfies noone and only breeds frustration, anger and hatred. The civil war never really ended, people just stopped killing each other. The US is simply living under a century old cease fire.

Let the two countries in one part their own ways amicably. This way the red states will be able to continue electing their beloved Donald Trumps and the blue states their Harvey Weinsteins, and everyone will be happy.

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: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...

I just see another patch problem.

[fahrbot-bot]

Think of all the 1-star patches that would have to be sent out to update all the US flags and all the problems that would cause. Many companies can't even apply OS patches and most people can't even patch drywall w/o problems. Flags will be messed up for *years*. They probably won't all get patched exactly the same way, and improperly patched flags would look funny and could even fly all wrong. As a sysadmin, and someone who sometime sews, I'm against this.

Interesting budget quandry...

[michael_cain]

If you dig into the details of the current California budget and look at the cash flows for roads, schools, medical care, and a couple of other things, what you find is a huge amount of money transferred from the coastal areas that would be in one new state to the rural areas that would be in the other. This is not unusual; it happens in a lot of states. (I used to do that kind of study professionally.)

Split the way it's drawn, the rural need for subsidies would remain largely unchanged, but the burden to provide the money would fall solely on the few cities (San Jose, San Diego) and their suburbs that got stuck in the rural state. Given a choice after they see a draft budget, San Jose and San Diego are going to scream about being included in the rural state.

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:Let's keep things even

[stomv]

Austin is more populous than five different US states.