California needs to be split into three states. The state was only to be allowed to be as big as it was because it was sparsely populated. With an economy that would be 7th in the world if California was a stand alone country it’s ridiculous that its large mass and huge population is represented by only two US Senators, neither of whom represent the interests of the state as a whole.
The State is also ungovernable as a State of this size with such a large population. It’s more of a country than a State by any measure – and a poorly run one, at that.
Every so often the populace discusses cutting the State in half and making two States. I’ve thought about this and cannot see any logical place to split the state in two, but can see a good argument for splitting the State into three or even more states. The average state in the USA has a population of around 6 million. California has 36 million. It is simply unmanageable and will only get worse.
First of all there are numerous political sub-cultures in California that are so distinctive that they should be separated and given statehood. These areas seldom communicate and rarely see themselves as connected to the other part. Based on dividing the state into just 3 states, they are as follows:
Northern California – This would be a state almost the size of Oregon with similar features and cities. The State begins north of Sacramento with a boundary from Pt. Arena on the west and Lake Tahoe on the east. The suggested Capital would be Eureka or Redding. There is little psychological connection between these folks and the rest of California and their needs are under-represented because of this. The area is massive, yet there is not one University of California campus. It would do better for itself as its own State.
California – The could also be called Central California and it consists of the middle of the State south of Pt. Arena down to just South of Big Sur. From there it cuts across keeping Los Banos while relinquishing Fresno, which people from this area think of as in Southern California. The Capital would remain Sacramento. The University of California, per se is in this area.
Southern California – This includes the entire rest of the State and constitutes the largest land mass. It would still be one of the largest states in the union. There is already a University of Southern California, which is convenient. The placement of the Capital is problematic and the candidates would include: Los Angeles, Pasadena and San Diego — although an even more neutral location such as Riverside or Santa Ana might work too.
Now to find a way to make this happen.
related links: older comments regarding this idea.
Desire to create a State called Jefferson using parts of Oregon and California.
This idea is thrown about every now and then, usually by non-Californians or well meaning but simple-minded crackpots. 98% of Californians, however, and from whatever socio-economic class, race, ethnicity, political party, sex or sexuall orientation are completely against this halfwit idea.
Interesting to note that most of these crackpot ideas come from wimpering simpering republican nincompoops when under duress.
RE #26
Last time i looked we were 44th in education, faxie. A bit unfair to compare us to much smaller states with millions less students.And education is a tricky subject. Cal is number one in high tech and no other state can even come close to our over 20 Nobel Prize winners, 6 which are LOCALS… teaching at out various institutions, of which no other state can match….Lawrence Livermore, Berkeley, Stanford, Silicon Valley, Cal Tech, Occidental, USC, UCLA, JPL, Cal Poly Pomona, plus science, technical, and medical research facilities which the rest of the 49 states would find hard, if not impossible to match….Hey…did I mention that 15 of the last 20 national high school decathalon winners were from Cali?? Or that our 5th and 6th grade math decathaletes have ruled the US championships for 10 of the last 20 years?? Or that if you lumped the infamous 31 “Red” states from the second bush election and combined their argricultural production, California would STILL outproduce them in terms of gross product and value of production. Or that California Agriculture has the highest per acre production than anywhere in the world except Japan. Or that we supply half of the NBA, MBL, NFL players, or half of American Nobel winners in science and medicine in the last ten years, or home to the heart and soul of the American defense industry, or home of the entertainment industry( maybe not such a good thing), the third highest oil producer( behind only Alaska and texas), ahem…I could go on for hours….so for now I’ll just say…OUCH!!!!!!
We’ll get over these rough times, which incidentally were set off by the bush/GOP generated bogus energy crisis of 2001….whoa…another OUCH!!!!!!!
Here’s a sure fire fix for Cali. First…send all the people who came here from other states(except Oregon, Arizona,Washington, those guys are cool)after 1965 back to their respective states. That should empty out about 18 million. Second, send back about 4 million people who came here from around the world(again, after 1965). Third, send back the illegal aliens to their respective countries. That should clear out another 4.5 million….so whats that so far? 26.5 million? Problem solved. Period. California for Californians. Hey #52…”Hold it together”?….You guys have a higher unemployment rate than California, your economies are dismal!!! LOL!!!
Spliting CA into 3 or 4 states is the only way for CA to fix its finacial problems. Los Angeles has almost 50% of its population on Welfare. San Francisco has 80% of its population thinking it isn’t fair that welfare people live on so little money. The size of these two cities drawfs the vote of the rest of the state at every election.
If San Francisco had to foot the bill for all welfare recipients, instead of voting with LA for the rest of the state to do it, they would quickly change their mind about taking care of these people. If they had to live with them like others here, they would see that society is not doing these people a favor, they are enabling them to be sloughful and dependent on the government to take care of them.
The only way for the rest of CA to be represented correctly is to divide the state up and create governments within the new states. Governments in the US are to be for the people, not become power houses for political parties. Sadly, whatever San Francisco and Los Angeles want, the rest of the state has to live with.