
New California plan would split state in three - mbgaxyz
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article168118272.html
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surfmike
It's not clear how this would solve any governance issues. The new states
still mix coastal cities within inland/central valley counties, so you keep
the urban/rural tension.

Regional governments around cities would do more help governance. A big
problem of the Bay Area is that political power is devolved too much to
cities, which paralyzes any regional efforts on infrastructure, housing,
crime, redevelopment. It would make more sense to create intermediate
governments with power over metro areas. E.g. separate regional governments
for the Bay Area, LA, Orange County, San Diego, Sacramento, and then larger
ones for the central valley and Northern California.

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akira2501
> It would make more sense to create intermediate governments with power over
> metro areas.

That's basically a county. Perhaps we just need to reconsider those
boundaries?

> Sacramento

As a native, it's not as homogeneous as anyone would presume; and I feel the
surrounding counties and structure do more or less reasonably represent the
geographical and societal divisions that are present in Sacramento and the
surrounding areas. I'm not sure any of our neighbors would appreciate being
lumped out of California and in with us.

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surfmike
Counties don't have nearly enough power to drive changes, and there are also
too many of them in the Bay Area as well.

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dragonwriter
> Counties don't have nearly enough power to drive changes

Depends on the county. The Bay Area makes that problematic, but the Bay Area
has extensive regional governance systems above the county level already.
(Such systems aren't uncommon in California, but the Bay Area is heavy with
them, probably specifically because it's a large economically integrated
region with small counties compared to the size of the region.)

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surfmike
It does, but they have essential no power (until you get to the state).

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gnicholas
Los Angeles and Orange County end up in different states? That's an odd place
to draw the line.

Also weird that progressive SF ends up with the more conservative far-north
counties.

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azinman2
Or that San Diego gets roped in with all the farming communities.

Id say Orange County is more like San Diego than it is like LA. Clearly no
matter how you draw these lines people’s commutes will be crossing states
(which also happens elsewhere, for example NH and MA).

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toast0
Depending on what part of orange county you identify with... I feel like north
Orange County, eg Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Buena Park, etc, would go well
with Los Angeles, and South Orange County, eg Irvine, Laguna *, San Juan
Capistrano, etc would go well with San Diego. For ease of division, let 714 go
with LA and 949 go with San Diego.

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jayd16
>His newest measure, filed Friday, says the “political representation of
California’s diverse population and economies has rendered the state nearly
ungovernable.”

Do people really think this? Seems like California is in pretty good shape to
me.

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jacobolus
It used to be somewhat ungovernable when there were >1/3 Republicans in the
legislature, since Prop 13 imposes severe constraints on the ability of any
governments in the state to raise taxes for any reason, and the CA state GOP
made it their mission to be as obstructionist as possible (my former state rep
sent out mailers proudly proclaiming that he had something like a 95% record
of voting No on every motion that came to the floor, interspersed with various
racist stereotypes). Didn’t help that we had a string of bad and ineffective
(for various reasons) governors in Pete Wilson, Gray Davis, and Arnold
Schwarzenegger.

Since the Democrats achieved a supermajority in both chambers, and with the
seasoned and very effective Jerry Brown as governor, everything has been
comparatively smooth.

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dbcurtis
Smooth as long as you are an ubanite. There are large swathes of California
that are tired of being ignored and having their concerns invalidated. There
is only so long people can be told that they are too insignificant to matter
before it all blows up.

I have been a Sili Valley engineer for years. But I grew up in rural America.
I can speak both languages. The half of the USA that voted Trump is simply
tired of the abuse, disdain, intolerance, and complete disregard for their
interests. They are no less human than you.

I suspect you are surprised at my reaction. Think about what that means.
Ignoring the seething anger of those who don't think things are going well now
that there is a supermajority in both houses is not going to end well.

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michaelmrose
If the majority of the population is concentrated in urban areas why shouldn't
the rural areas be marginalized.

Shall we count the trees and squirrels as part of the population in order to
make it more fair?

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Doctor_Fegg
Replace "rural areas" with any other minority of your choice and see how that
first sentence sounds.

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enraged_camel
Minorities are protected classes. Rural areas aren't. You can't change your
race. You can change your location.

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LyndsySimon
Oddly enough, moving from a very poor rural area to one of the richest
counties in the country hasn't magically changed my political views.

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raymondh
The last time this idea was proposed, Jay Leno joked that the three new states
would be called, "log, fog, and smog".

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jayd16
Doesn't work with this proposal though. More like log and fog, surf and smog,
and ..uhh...gerry and mander?

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tristanj
The biggest political consequence of this plan is that it would add 4
additional democratic senate seats.

For this reason, I can't see this plan proceeding though congress.

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hkmurakami
Won't the green area go GOP?

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tristanj
I think it's close, but San Diego should be enough to tip it blue. Here's how
the counties voted in 2012.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_California,_2012)

Edit: I was curious so I ran the math. It's super close, but republicans
barely win. In 2012, Republicans scored 1,786,934 votes in green counties.
Democrats scored 1,774,135 votes. That places republicans winning by 12,799
votes or with 50.18% of the vote.

That makes the new "Southern California" a swing state.

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tdeck
I thought "calexit" meant California leaving the USA. This is a similar but
different bad idea.

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swang
well if they won't go for 6 separate californias.... let's try 3!

also, southern california (green) isn't even south of california (purple)...

okay that's not the ridiculous part. the ridiculous part is the comment
section thinking this is some liberal conspiracy. apparently they equate
silicon valley as full of liberals... which i guess it is, but it's also full
of non-liberals... you know the billionaires that can actually fund dumb stuff
like this over and over again.

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dchasson
Humor follows: Strange to say a plan would split California into 3 and solve
the human linked tickets. Especially, when considering over 100 years of
Americans alone splitting California into pieces (without github issues). I
would prefer to see the surprises of a California United with the States, than
any more division of human linked tickets. I hypothesize that humans in
California are responsible for the majority of outstanding open issues in open
source software, and as an Oregonian, I insist that California start closing
TODOS before it starts forking itself.

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frigen
There's really no limit to VCs.

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dbcurtis
The map is designed to make sure all three states end up disenfranchising
rural and agricultural interests. I look at that map and see disdain and hate.

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landryraccoon
Can you clarify? One of the states looks to be composed of mostly rural areas.
And except for the state made up of mostly LA, the other state looks to have
roughly equal rural vs urban representation compared to modern California. Can
you clarify what you find offensive about it?

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dbcurtis
All three states would be dominated by urban, coastal voters. It is not
designed to create areas of common economic interest, it is dedigned to
disenfrancise disfavored interests.

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sapienthomo
I hate to break it to you, but the population of California itself matches
your description. It is impossible to divide the state into three equipopulous
areas without those areas being dominated by urban centers, because the great
majority of Californians live in those centers. What you seem to be advocating
is that the residents of the depopulated areas be given disproportionate
representation?

