Tim Draper Gives Details on Initiative to Split California into Six States

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/23/yes-its-real-tim-draper-gives-details-on-ballot-initiative-to-make-silicon-valley-a-state/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=sfgplus&utm_content=FaceBook&%3Fncid=sfgplus

by epenn • 13 years ago

33 49 13 years ago

techcrunch.com

TrainedMonkey• 13 years ago

I really doubt GOP will just lie down and let five more extremely democratic states happen.

dragonwriter8• 13 years ago

I haven't done a detailed analysis of the political impacts, but just looking at the map and having some knowledge of the political geography of the State, it looks like it would probably be a win for Republicans in the Senate and Presidential elections -- going from one solid Blue state to a either a 3/3 or 2/4 split of Blue and Red states; the Blue regions of California are largely concentrated in "Silicon Valley" and "West California".

alexeisadeski32• 13 years ago

Not sure about that. Breaking it down, I think that all six areas would go Democrat - the Republican bastions of San Diego, Inland Empire, Central Valley, and Greater SLO are all jerrymandered into the larger Democratic areas of LA, Sacramento, and Santa Barabara.

Silicon Valley: Strong Democrat

West California (Santa Barabara, right?): Medium/Light Dem

Jefferson (Humbolt?): Strong Dem

South California: Strong Dem

Central California: Medium Dem (because of Sacto)

North California: Solid Dem (?)

protomyth3• 13 years ago

Technically, going from the voting records, the split could result in some deeply red states. Cut SF and LA and their blue surroundings into states and their are a lot of traditionally red counties left. Some county splits would result in an even greater political split.

[edit] the map given in the proposal is not really that good based on voting / land use - industry. California is more vertical than horizontal and coastal / interior divides.

001sky2• 13 years ago

This would be "dark pattern" approach to load the Senate. Yeah it would be great for the squaky wheel, but at the federal level CA needs no more resources.

thuuuomas• 13 years ago

Anyone want to explain the significance of their chosen boundaries to a non-Californian?

pedalpete• 13 years ago

My best guess as a non-Californian.

Top Blue - I believe this is a mountainous region, not much industry.

Purple - Massive forest area (on the coast at least), also small population and not much industry

Yellow - North Bay, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Sacramento. Lots of industry, technology and money. Large population as a whole spread out fairly evenly across the region, so lots of medium sized towns and small cities (S.F, Oakland, San Jose, Palo Alto, etc.etc.). Industry includes the big names you know, Google, Facebook, Apple, as well as large research facilities (I believe NASA has a large centre there). Lots of Universities as well.

Red - Some farm-land, mountainous further inland. I believe cattle, cheese, and some fruit orchards.

Green - Great farmland. Grapes and wine region, orchards, lots of cattle land. Moderate populations, towns like San Luis Obispo (great part of California if you haven't visited).

Orange - Massive populations of Los Angeles also medium sized cities of San Diego, Palm Springs/Desert. Massive industry throughout the area serving the population and the industries of Los Angeles. LA is a massive manufacturing hub (clothing, automobiles, the list goes on and on). Massive sea port at Long Beach (there may be others too).

Railroadcar93• 13 years ago

north of sac is not blue at all

dmckeon• 13 years ago

For the political side, here is a per-county view: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/in-calif...

On the practical side, a division into 6 parts avoids the usual North/South argument, or the less frequent North/Central/South version, and could be walked back to a 5, 4, or 3-way split.

That said, I recall a survey not long after Prop 13 that had Californians liking a 2-way split, as long as the part that each respondent lived in 'got' Disneyland, and the other part got Sacramento. This proposal seems about as likely to happen as that one.

adamnemecek• 13 years ago

Incomplete list of things that most certainly won't happen: this.

jyzzmoe• 13 years ago

This will amount to exactly nothing.

Railroadcar93• 13 years ago

no this is about over regulation massive corruption and complete lack of any in sac or southern to address the real issues facing the people here, its about lack of representation and those who wish to free themselves from the out of control government, liberals = ignore corruption because they worship the institutions of government . The Jefferson State lives here. http://youtu.be/MMnRZXz51WE

gametheoretic• 13 years ago

"Blank is about blank" statements have no real meaning; you'll rarely find them in use outside politics, where they enjoy extreme popularity due to the difficulty of their conversational negation.

martinjones• 13 years ago

This is just an attempt to get attention. States can't just decide to split themselves into multiple states, it requires federal legislation.

The only state that can split itself up is Texas, which was part of the agreement to bring the Republic of Texas into the union. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_divisionism

chimeracoder• 13 years ago

Nate Silver did an interesting analysis of this ability back in 2009 (before joining the New York Times): http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/messing-with-texas.ht...

Puerto Rico already voted in favor of becoming a state in 2012. The only thing stopping it from happening now is a simple majority vote of Congress[0].

Personally, I think giving Puerto Rico, a territory that already must obey federal laws, the ability to vote on said federal laws is a much higher priority than splitting up the states that we already have.

...which is to say, of course, that I imagine that none of these will happen anytime soon.

[0] As best as I could tell, the threshold for statehood really is this low.

dragonwriter8• 13 years ago

This is just an attempt to get attention. States can't just decide to split themselves into multiple states, it requires federal legislation.

It requires both State action and federal legislation. But the State action is clearly a required step.

The only state that can split itself up is Texas, which was part of the agreement to bring the Republic of Texas into the union.

As your own link notes, that agreement specifically cited that it could only be done subject to the requirements of the Constitution, which would seem to mean that Texas can do it exactly as much as any other state can -- that is, with action of the State legislature and the federal Congress.

jasonwocky• 13 years ago

The only state that can split itself up is Texas

As your link indicates, a more accurate telling is "The only state that some proponents argue can split itself up is Texas".

protomyth3• 13 years ago

"The only state that can split itself up is Texas"

The Civil War pretty much screwed this up and the division can happen elsewhere because of precedent.

vonskippy• 13 years ago

Guess he can't let Bezos and his dorky drones get all the media attention.

Railroadcar93• 13 years ago

rubbish it is possible but require a simple majority vote in both the state legislators and congress

goggles99• 13 years ago

federal authorities will have to buy more chairs for the Senate floor

Oh the irony of this statement...

codex• 13 years ago

“The status quo is just not going to work,” said draper. “The existing breadth of industry and various interests in California is untenable.”

Are there specific examples of problems that splitting CA would fix? It seems that a split would make many of these new states more extreme than the average of old CA, but perhaps that is a good thing.

dragonwriter8• 13 years ago

“The status quo is just not going to work,” said draper. “The existing breadth of industry and various interests in California is untenable.”

If true, that makes the proposed state of North California a problem, since, while much smaller, it includes much of the breadth of industry and interests of the whole existing State -- the whole Urban-suburban-rural spread, the whole coastal-interior spread, etc.

I don't agree with his assessment of the problem, but if I pretend for a moment that I did, I can't see how his proposal solves it.

001sky2• 13 years ago

And by "breadth of industry" he means 'Hollywood' vs 'Silicon Valley'. Everything else is just a bunch of plebian service and food industries. The military industrial base is also not a single-geographic location, but instead rather spread out and wide ranging.

prostoalex• 13 years ago

Government spending across California could be prioritized differently.

Central California farm communities would get more money diverted to waterways and agricultural projects. Northern Californians could finally get the school and public transportation spending up to the level that they're craving for. Southern California would probably build more highways and give more incentives to tourism and entertainment industries.

Status quo is nobody being quite happy with the status quo because those jerks from <insert region where you don't live> lobbied enough for <some cause you don't care much about>.

wwweston2• 13 years ago

Central California farm communities would get more money diverted to waterways and agricultural projects. Northern Californians could finally get the school and public transportation spending up to the level that they're craving for

Internal to California, a lot of the tax base comes from urban centers that would no longer be part of the same state. Federal dollars might get spent differently, I guess, but they'd also be allocated differently, and the more populous states would have at least somewhat more lobbying power.

So, yes, while the new states would be able to prioritize more independently, it seems likely that the pie they're drawing from would be more limited -- possibly much more so.

Southern California would probably build more highways and give more incentives to tourism and entertainment industries.

No tax base problem here, so this is potentially true, but I'm not sure it's one to put in the plus column.

dragonwriter8• 13 years ago

Central California farm communities would get more money diverted to waterways and agricultural projects.

Well, except that Central California is a giant desert, and all the significant water sources would be out of state. California water policy is largely driven through the federal government now, and splitting California up into six separate states (and, particularly, splitting the main water corridors each up into multiple states) is going to move the locus of even more of the decision-making to Washington, rather than increasing local control.

Northern Californians could finally get the school and public transportation spending up to the level that they're craving for.

Even most of the "Northern" California regional transportation issues would, under the proposals, span some combination of Silicon Valley, Central California, and North California.

Southern California would probably build more highways and give more incentives to tourism and entertainment industries.

Southern California already drives statewide policy, as a consequence having the vast majority of the population (and, consequently, voters and seats in both houses of the legislature.)

Status quo is nobody being quite happy with the status quo because those jerks from <insert region where you don't live> lobbied enough for <some cause you don't care much about>.

As if Marin and Sacramento Counties have more commonality of interest than San Francisco and Los Angeles.

BrandonMarc• 13 years ago

Are there specific examples of problems that splitting CA would fix?

Electoral politics. It cuts both ways, though: many in CA would love to see TX split into several weaker states.

wwweston2• 13 years ago

Are there specific examples of problems that splitting CA would fix?

Not anywhere in any article I've seen -- just more platitudes about the size of government and vague allusions to California being ungovernable. Particularly frustrating in an article that announces it gives details.

There are indeed some issues that make California difficult to govern, but if I were picking them out, I'd put limits to the power of legislators to make policy without supermajorities and the initiative process itself pretty far above the idea that we just don't have enough state lines in the region ("Hi, I think state government is a terrible problem and to solve it we should make 5 more of them.")

It seems like a good guess that what Draper really means by "ungovernable" is that as the balance of power and philosophy now lies, there are some personal business or political goals that he's unable to bring to pass, despite significant wealth or influence.

StefanKarpinski• 13 years ago

My guess is that this is all about Silicon Valley secession and the five other states really just serve to make it seem more reasonable.

jliptzin• 13 years ago

Split into 6 parts? Why not start with 2 and see where you get?

protomyth3• 13 years ago

Starting with 3 would be a lot more interesting. Los Angeles metropolitan area (Southland), San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area, and then the rest.

jrochkind1• 13 years ago

He expects the citizens to crowdsource many of the ideas around water rights…

Does that even mean something?

JoeAltmaier• 13 years ago

I've thought for years, California needs to be two states, split at Monterey (everybody would want to keep Monterey so split it). The politics of Southern California (ok LA) is completely different from regular California, especially regarding water rights.

memracom• 13 years ago

Those are the Ecotopia borders I believe.

It would not be a bad idea to hand over an area east of Sacramento to be joined with Nevada.

As far as naming goes, Silicon Valley sucks. Silicon Valley is too small to be a viable state economically. A state needs some diversity in it. A coastal chunk from Monterrey Bay north up to and including Napa would be more realistic but that is not Silicon Valley.

jmspring• 13 years ago

I'm curious how much agriculture propped up the California economy during the last few tech busts. As a California native, the divisions are naive bordering on idiotic. A state of Silicon Valley that were to have a tech downturn would have serious problems with a lack of diversity in industry.

But, hey, Tim Draper has way more money than I do and California has a history of letting those with lots of money float silly ideas.

mblakele• 13 years ago

Agriculture in California is relatively unimportant, according to 2008 BEA statistics cited at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gross_Domestic_Product_of_... - just 2% of California's notional GDP. I think I have read 4% from another source, but either way it is marginal.

I tend to think that the comments on electoral statistics have this right. It is an attempt to tilt the Senate and Electoral College.

gte910h• 13 years ago

It may be economically not significant, but its a huge pile of food.

I live on the east coast, and much of my food is still from California farms.

cphoover• 13 years ago

There is a reason Washington, D.C. Does not have voting rights or substantive representation in congress and that is that republicans don't want to give more votes to democrats. Republicans would never let something like this happen

stevewillows• 13 years ago

Any chance us Cascadians can get a piece?

Tim Draper Gives Details on Initiative to Split California into Six States

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