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Investor Tim Draper Pushes Ballot Measure Splitting California Into 3 States (sfgate.com)
"One of several proposals aiming to split California into multiple smaller states has reportedly reached an important new goal thanks in large part to the efforts of its billionaire champion," writes schwit1. SFGate reports:
Venture capitalist Tim Draper, who previously pushed a proposal that would split California into six states, says that his three-state proposal has enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. On Thursday, Draper said in a statement that the "CAL 3" initiative has collected over 600,000 signatures from Californians who would like to see the state split into three. An initiative needs 366,000 signatures to appear on the ballot. "This is an unprecedented show of support on behalf of every corner of California to create three state governments that emphasize representation, responsiveness, reliability and regional identity," Draper said.
The U.S. Congress would still need to approve the change -- and it's probably useful to remember what happened when Draper tried splitting California into six states. He ultimately turned in 1.3 million signatures for a ballot measure in 2014, "only to see nearly half of them disqualified.
"He ended up about 100,000 short of the valid signatures he needed."
The U.S. Congress would still need to approve the change -- and it's probably useful to remember what happened when Draper tried splitting California into six states. He ultimately turned in 1.3 million signatures for a ballot measure in 2014, "only to see nearly half of them disqualified.
"He ended up about 100,000 short of the valid signatures he needed."
Only because you fail to understand the senate exists to represent states. The house is supposed to represent the population / people.
It's the stupid 17th amendment that makes this an issue and it's the main reason our federal government has become some completely disfunctional.
Surely he represents the average californian
It has always seemed weird to me that California has the same number of senators in Washington as North Dakota and Vermont.
Short version: Works as intended. Small states supposed to have disproportionate power. Forces more compromise.
... and in those days there was probably a large degree of truth to it. Today the Senate is a bit closer in composition to the House due to direct election so we have lost some of those benefits. However the protection of the small states still persists.
Long version:
The organization of the US government is heavily influenced by the concept of checks and balances, forced compromise. Power spread among the three branches of government, executive, legislature, judicial. Power spread among the interests of the people and the interests of the states. Power spread among the slowly changing and the rapidly changing. Power spread among the large and the small states.
The Senate was designed to represent the state governments themselves and to be slowly changing (6 year terms rather than 2). Originally the senators were selected by the state governments. In 1913 things were changed so that Senators were directly elected by the people.
The Senate was also designed specifically so that the large states could not dominate the small states, effectively making them vassals. This was an essential compromise that allowed the formation of the country in the first place. The small states would not have otherwise voted for the constitution if they did not have some sort of protection. The Senate is their protection, their balance, their tool of compromise.
Keep in mind that the founding fathers not only feared powerful central governments, they also feared the poorly educated and overly emotional mob. They were worried the legislature could be dominated by the mob if purely directly elected. The Senate being selected by the state governments was intended to balance the influence of the mob with the influence of the better educated, the latter being more characteristic of those in the state governments compared to the average citizen.
Well, that was the theory
It's not weird. It's intentional. The intent is to require broad geographic as well as popular consensus to pass laws that apply to the entire country, thereby protecting minority rights from the tyranny of a 50%+1 majority concentrated in any one place.
No it isn't. If ten people live on a forested mountain, the one hundred people in the town in the next valley should not be able to vote to deforest the mountain.
We are a republic. We are not a democracy. Democracies are stupid.
It's not a "weird system" at all: the US is a union of states. If you want the rural states to be part of the union, then those rural states want to be assured that they can't steamrolled by the high population states. It works the same way in the EU. It's the way free and voluntary associations between states work.
The kind of majoritarianism you believe in, extended to the rest of the world, would mean that China and India get to tell everybody else in the world how to live their lives. I don't think that's a good idea.
I think it's even simpler than that: the US was intended as a voluntary union of states, and "you join us and you lose all ability to control your own future" is not a particularly good selling point for a political union.
I think their misunderstanding is that they think a "state" is simply a subdivision of a national government. It's not. "State" is another term for "country". We're a union of semi-independent countries that came together for common defense and free trade across state lines. The goal of the Constitution was to limit the power of the central government and keep most governing at the state and local level. It has failed, mainly through apathy and ignorance.
Similarly, if one hundred people live on a forested mountain, the ten people in the next town over and the 20 people in a different nearby town should not be able to vote to deforest the mountain.
The problem is that the founding fathers never imagined that we would have a single state that is almost two orders of magnitude larger than the smallest state. The result of that huge population difference is twofold:
The net result is that Wyoming has 3 electors and California has 55, whereas proportional to the population, California would have 204. If California were three states, it would still probably not have more than 53 representatives (but it might). It would, however, have 6 senators instead of two, and thus four additional electors. 59 electors is a relatively small improvement, but it can't hurt. If California split into six states (to get within an order of magnitude of Wyoming), that would be ten extra electors.
The only real long-term fix is to either replace PAA 1929 with a true proportional representation law or get the courts to overturn PAA 1929 as an unconstitutional violation of Article I Section 2 Paragraph 3 of the U.S. Constitution as amended. Then change the electoral college so that it matches the congressional behavior, i.e. president is elected by electors proportional to the population, and the vice president (and president of the senate) is elected by two electors per state.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
False: in 1776 Virginia had roughly 447,000 people and Georgia had roughly 23,000. If the founders actually had a population that disproportionate how could they not imagine the disparity between California (39 million) and Wyoming (600,000)?