Dividing California up into multiple states

[GeneralMacArthur]

Note:  This is just food for thought and I am not taking a personal position on it.


It's an old idea that has been proposed many times.  But with the new focus on high-stakes cheating, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more attention, particularly as many people are advocating for the acceptance of PR and DC as new states.

California is home to 1/8 of the American population.  It is responsible for 1/7 of the GDP (and the corresponding share of the federal budget).  It is home to one of the United States' 7 nuclear weapons production and research facilities and numerous nuclear missile silos, military bases, military research and production facilities, etc. not to mention critical ports and naval bases as it constitutes 2/3 of the west coast.

All of which is to say, if California seceded from the Union and insisted on coming back in as a bunch of different states, the United States of America would probably be forced to cave to its demands.  It couldn't afford to let California stay independent for very long, nor would a war with California over such an issue be politically popular.  This is important because if California politely asked Congress to split into multiple states, it would end up in the same limbo as DC and PR.  But temporary secession would force the issue.

Of course, California re-entering the Union as several different states has numerous practical issues.  But politically, it's really quite simple.  The Democrats would increase their representation in the Senate and, if they do it right, put very few electoral votes at risk.

For instance, Tom Draper has pushed the "6 Californias" and "3 Californias" plans as ballot issues over the last few years.  The 6 Californias one is silly, because it breaks California up into 3 urban states and 3 rural states (inland empire, the mojave desert, and South Oregon).  But the 3 Californias plan splits the Bay Area into two different states, thus guaranteeing that Democrats can dominate all three states on the strength of Oakland/Berkeley (1), San Francisco/San Jose (2), and LA (3) for an easy gain of 4 senate seats and 4 electoral votes.

There has been a lot of well-justified hand-wringing over the last few days over the baked-in advantage in all three branches that Republicans have from the 2-senators-per-seat rule.  It artificially inflates the value of presidential votes in rural states like Wyoming, which have 3 electoral votes despite nobody living there.  It gives Republicans a huge advantage in the Senate.  And they are able to leverage that Senate advantage to control the Supreme Court, as we are now seeing.  Even CD allocation is weighted in the GOP's favor, with New York having 27x more representatives than Wyoming despite having 40x its population.

But if Democrats want to go nuclear and want an easy answer to their Senate/EV woes, it really seems like breaking up California is the most immediately possible solution -- and one that the Democrats could pull off even with Republicans controlling all 3 branches of government.

Food for thought.

[lfromnj]

Fun fact from 2017 to 2018 the 10 smallest states had 11/20 senators being Democrats , and it could be up  to 12/20 depending on the 2020 senate elections.

[Badger]

It's one thing to add new States like DC or PR, but splitting up States for pretty much political reasons is just begging for even worse president. The next thing you know we will have Oklahoma split in the 50 different states

[Ferguson97]

It's one thing to add new States like DC or PR, but splitting up States for pretty much political reasons is just begging for even worse president. The next thing you know we will have Oklahoma split in the 50 different states

Not if the Republicans never win the presidency again after all the reforms Dems do

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

I'm not clear why a Republican-controlled Congress would allow California re-admittance to the Union, especially on terms so favorable to the Democrats. Sure, losing California (or having a California Cold War) would have huge downsides for the United States, but have you looked at what Republicans are already supporting right now without even twitching or blinking? The majority of the current GOP seems like they'd sit around watching Fox News specials on how horrible things are in California and laughing, even as they were all on the verge of death themselves.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Fun fact from 2017 to 2018 the 10 smallest states had 11/20 senators being Democrats , and it could be up  to 12/20 depending on the 2020 senate elections.

Yeah, people point fingers at Wyoming, Montana, Alaska and the Dakotas because they take up so much space on the land map.  It's those big red 3s just staring you right in the face.  But Hawaii, Rhode Island, Delaware and Vermont are solid-blue equivalents that just get forgotten because they're so teeny-tiny.

It's the second tier where Democrats really get screwed.  Utah, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho.  Whole bunch of 4/5/6 EV low-population states, 7/9 solid red.

Fun fact, Washington DC ranks very solidly in terms of total GDP (between Kansas and Arkansas) and its GDP per capita is more than twice as high as every other state.

[Storr]

California should be divided into two. Anything else is too complicated or plain ugly (like the 5 Californias map). Just divide the state along the San Luis Obispo, Kern, and San Bernardino county northern boundary line, 35°48′ north. The northern state would have around 19 million people, and the Southern one around 23 million.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I'm not clear why a Republican-controlled Congress would allow California re-admittance to the Union, especially on terms so favorable to the Democrats. Sure, losing California (or having a California Cold War) would have huge downsides for the United States, but have you looked at what Republicans are already supporting right now without even twitching or blinking? The majority of the current GOP seems like they'd sit around watching Fox News specials on how horrible things are in California and laughing, even as they were all on the verge of death themselves.

Yeah if I was a Republican, I would just let California stay outside the Union until the next presidential election.  Without California, Republicans easily win the House and Democrats are forced to win Florida to have any hope at the presidency.  See how long the Democrats can tolerate  single-party rule before they're the ones begging California to come back.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

California in 1859: Split us in two
Congress in 1860: Do you have any idea how bad your timing is?

[GeneralMacArthur]

California should be divided into two. Anything else is too complicated or plain ugly (like the 5 Californias map). Just divide the state along the San Luis Obispo, Kern, and San Bernardino county northern boundary line, 35°48′. The northern state would have around 19 million people, and the Southern one around 23 million.

Plenty of organizations already divide California into NorCal and SoCal because the state is so damn big.  Some athletic conferences with "one from each state" type competitions allow one each from NorCal and SoCal.  The two regions also have completely different cultures and economies.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

It's one thing to add new States like DC or PR, but splitting up States for pretty much political reasons is just begging for even worse president. The next thing you know we will have Oklahoma split in the 50 different states

Not if the Republicans never win the presidency again after all the reforms Dems do

Are you planning on adding 40 states or what?

[पिकाचु]

Compared to court-packing or admitting DC/PR, you start to run into real-life governing problems by splitting a state which has been one political unit for over 150 years. There’s SoCal suffering because it misses out from transfer payments from the Bay, there’s the mess of what you do with very integrated state-wide higher education system, how you deal with Caltrans and its statewide network (this is the one way to make HSR even worse), and then there’d be the water system. Divvying up the water system would be a dumb, hellish nightmare.

And, sure, it’s fair to argue that both of these states would be governed by Democrats and they can figure it out, etc etc, but we have enough experience from the Northeast to know this probably won’t be the case. But the big thing imo is that splitting states is a big, permanent solution which is going to last longer than our current partisan alignments., with the potential to be a bigg mess with tons of unintended consequences.

[Pericles]

Fun fact from 2017 to 2018 the 10 smallest states had 11/20 senators being Democrats , and it could be up  to 12/20 depending on the 2020 senate elections.

As MacArthur pointed out, the Senate is still biased against Dems. But additionally, relying on keeping seats like Manchin's is not a sensible long-term strategy. Democrats are already overperforming the natural partisanship of the current Senate map, once they pose their string candidates and aren't in D+8% environments any more the problem becomes a lot more dire for them. Unless of course they reduce it or indeed fix it entirely before then.

[ND, SD, MT, WY, and ID statehood was and is unconstitutional]

This is absolutely necessary if we want to protect Democracy.

[7,052,770]

While there is some logical basis for this, but it's a terrible precedent to set.

[Trump v. Wong Kim Ark]

Note: I do not endorse the idea of splitting California.

Without looking really deeply into the numbers, but using my knowledge of the geography and general politics, I’ve thought of a few possibilities.

The Bay Area, SoCal, and the rest of the state.

The Bay Area would be tightly concentrated on the Bay Area itself, so something like Sonoma might be in the “rest of the state”. Monterey, and San Luis Obispo counties would also be in the “rest of the state.”

On the flip side, Mono and Inyo would probably have to be in “SoCal” due to the far better road connections to San Bernardino County. The mountain passes into Mono County from the Central Valley are not traversable during the winter.

Kern County, though it is below the 36 30 line of county borders that “neatly” divides the state, really belongs with the rest of the Central Valley. The passes between (Kern and LA) and (Kern and San Bernardino) are lower (about 4,500 feet), so they don’t usually close for long periods compared to those between Mono and the Valley.

You’d have to adjust a few county lines, for example the whole bay should be one state, so draw the line like a mile inland from Highway 37 across the top of the Bay so that Vallejo and Novato are connected without crossing state lines. I would also move the north end of Solano County (so like Dixon and maybe Vacaville) to the “rest of the state.”

Without running the numbers, I think that this would give three fairly solidly Democratic states.



Edit: Re: Solano County: I could even see having Fairfield and Rio Vista in the “rest of the state”, leaving only Vallejo and Benicia in the Bay Area.

[ND, SD, MT, WY, and ID statehood was and is unconstitutional]

Divide California into 6 states all of about equal population please.

[Jumped off the American Sinking Ship]

The republican majority (bolstered by newly-minted Senators from split up gerrymandered Texas) wouldn’t let it happen.

[Joe Kakistocracy]

While there is some logical basis for this, but it's a terrible precedent to set.

Agreed, but terrible precedents are very in vogue right now.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I agree with this in priciple.  But I just don’t see how it can realistically happen.  The biggest reason has nothing to do with the federal government, but just the fact that the state government is such a massive institution.  For example, how do you deal with the state pension fund, which is several hundred billion dollars?  The hundreds of thousands of people whose future income is wrapped up in that fund are not going to risk destabilizing it just so Dems can get a few more Senate seats.

[Landslide Lyndon]

The republican majority (bolstered by newly-minted Senators from split up gerrymandered Texas) wouldn’t let it happen.

Um, Texas is a swing state now. Not to mention that even when it was a Republican stronghold you couldn't possibly divide it without creating at least a couple of Dem-leaning states (eg, Rio Grande).  

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

No, I live in CAli, it wont happen

[Beet]

Should have been done a long time ago.

But regardless of your view, in 2018 there was a ballot measure to this affect, and someone tweeted something like "Splitting California is a Republican/Russian plot to weaken the great Democratic state" that got hundreds of thousands of likes.

People are very stupid.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

It's one thing to add new States like DC or PR, but splitting up States for pretty much political reasons is just begging for even worse president. The next thing you know we will have Oklahoma split in the 50 different states

Not if the Republicans never win the presidency again after all the reforms Dems do

Texas might be able to split itself into up to five states without legislation. Debatably, they could also be permanently gerrymandered - these states might not even have to be equal in population.

If TX ever does become the safe D state it's hyped up to be, such a split initiated by Democrats could mitigate the Senate disadvantage without triggering an arms race like splitting California would.

[Mister Mets]

Morally, if they can get support for this, it's a valid strategy.

But there doesn't seem to be enough interest within California. That might change if enough progressives get pissed off at various political imbalances.