Should California be broken up as a State, and if so how?

[SidneyCarton]

The bigger this budget mess gets, the more I begin to wonder whether California is viable anymore as a single state. We are huge, 1 in 9 Americans lives in this state, we have huge infrastructural costs, and the government in Sacramento has proven itself to be inept at facing this challenge. Could the state as it is currently constituted be just too big and too expensive to run realistically?

Now it may be argued that CA is not the only big state, and others work all right. Alaska is several times the size of California, but it also has a very small population which recieves what is effectively welfare payments from oil & gas revenues for the state. Texas is also larger than CA, and has the second largest population of any state in the union, and is not facing a budget crisis this year. But Texas has not had proposition 13 to deal with, simple majorities can pass a budget in TX, and they can raise property taxes if necessary, hence Texas does not face the same structural limitations that California does.

So, should the state be divided, and if so along which lines?

[comtec]

1. everythign north of LA

screw the south!

[SidneyCarton]

2. As a Southern Californian, I can hardly agree with you.

[ronnykmarshall]

13. Gee thanks.

[Throd]

3. Divide it into 3 chunks: Southern, Central & Northern

[Oeditpus Rex]

4. It would almost seem this was allowed for

by whoever drew the county lines. The southern boundaries of Monterey, Kings, Tulare and Inyo counties connect to make a more-or-less straight line across the state. While this "Northern California" would have about twice the area as its southern counterpart, I'd guess the populations would be about the same.

[SidneyCarton]

5. I have thought much the same.

Though I doubt that So Cal would agree to any split that did not include Inyo, because of the Los Angeles Aquaduct. We would be losing the headwaters of the California Aquaduct in any deal, so the prospect of suddenly getting all our water from out of state would probably not be very appealing.

[comtec]

8. You mean the water LA STEALS hands down from N ca w/o even paying for it?

THAT aqueduct?

for those of you not from the great state, this is a very long, and violent (words) battle between the north and south for a very long time.

Basically LA takes all our water, bay area on down, and gives little compensation to the rest of the state.

that and having a horribly conservative voting base, and bunch of illiterate, moronic, star-struck voters, which is WHY California is in such a mess.

It was LA that voted in large number for ahnold, and prop hate. (I'm NOT blaming any DUers, I know you're far to handsome and intelligent for this)

but that is the major reason the North hates the south. They screw up the once beautiful state.

[litlady]

10. Re your points:

- The water will continue to be taken regardless of a divide.
- The conservative voting base is heavily inland, not Southern. Los Angeles and other parts of So.Cal. are huge and not conservative. Nearly every Nor.Cal. inland county is also conservative.
- I agree that it sucks that LA helped vote for Prop 8 but again so did most of the Nor.Cal.inland counties.
- I don't hate the North or South and indeed love parts of both. :)

[truedelphi]

21. Thank you for that sensible response. As A No. Calif.

Who has spent some very happy moments in LA, I appreciate every thing you mentioned.

And although Democrats don't like to mention it, I think that Angelides was a very weak candidate, especially since we knew in advance that younger people would probably vote for Ahnold, as they felt they had grown up with him and that they knew him from his movies.

Steve Westly would have probably done much better against Ahnold, which is the reason why Di Fi didn't let it happen. And now she has Angelides sitting in a position on the TARP and Bailout monies oversight team, though from the make up of that team, I doubt that much oversight will really happen.

[bananas]

6. Coast, Mountain, Desert

That's how they do it in the weather reports.

[Tumbulu]

7. Yes, three states, each with two senators

sounds about right. The primary problem is that we have only two senators, if we divide up we get more realistic representation in the senate. Perhaps we should become 4 states, that is 8 senators.

[litlady]

9. My family member wants it North/South because she dislikes the "liberal North"...

but that is silly. If you look at the voting in even the last election, it is clear that nearly all coastal counties voted blue (exception: Orange) and most inland counties with a few exceptions voted red. I guess the problem with separating it by coast and inland or blue and red would be that the blue areas have all the population centers.

[Cleita]

11. If the north takes Sacramento and Arnold and the present legislature,

I would be open to a new Constitution in the south, with the chance to elect a new governor and legislators. That could work for me. Otherwise I say no. North and South are dependent on each other for prosperity in normal times and will be in the future when we get some leadership back and the movie actor/body builder out.

[mackerel]

12. Make it a split across the state at Fresno.

[XemaSab]

14. Depending on who you ask

Mendo is only *marginally* Northern California. :D

[cboy4]

15. No.

[Fire Walk With Me]

16. This is extremely dangerous. It could possibly give the GOP a portion of our "blue" votes.

Of course, after Enron, one wonders if the current budget crisis is also manufactured in order to clear the way for such "solutions", all beneficial to the GOP.

[jcarterhero]

17. True

That's why I'm against the idea of splitting California.

[SidneyCarton]

22. I'm not so sure.

California would cease to be a huge single prize in Presidential Elections, but depending on how you broke up the state you would likely add 2-4 Democratic Senators, and 2-3 more blue states.

[NBachers]

18. No

No

[bemildred]

19. I think one more term for Ahnuld would probably do the job.

Can't say what the resulting pieces would be though. I expect that would be a heck of an argument.

[itsrobert]

20. No

I like California just the way it is. Love it or leave it.

[Glory89fan]

23. No

It's a stupid idea.