Should California break up? Should your state?
Friday May 22, 2009
Categories: A Sense of Place, Politics (general)
Here's a case for California breaking up into four states, based on the idea that it has become too diverse, both culturally and economically, to be governable on the basis of its 1850 boundary status. The proposed divisions are: 1....
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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It would make sense, except we'd end up with six Bolshevik senators and two conservatives.
And how long would the South get water from up north?
What ought to break up is the US--New England, the Mid-Atlantic region, the South, Texas, the Northwest, the Southwest, the Midwest, Alaska, and Hawaii. Nine very nicely sized, relatively homogeneous countries. None in a position to go to war in the Old World.
Perhaps to make up for the destabilization this would cause in the Senate we should combine Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island? It seems most, if not all of the arguments for breaking up California apply in reverse to New England.
As long as the President continues to be elected by the Electoral College, this proposal is a non-starter.
Nah. I think the social conservatives in SoCal don't deserve any more power than they already have.
Northern Virginia -- the D. C. suburbs -- should be made a part of Maryland.
Large stretches of Florida should be made parts of New Jersey.
The Merle Haggard / Buck Owens part of California should be made a part of Oklahoma.
This would make sense and would help the American people, so it will never, ever, ever happen.
The sole purpose of the US Government is to destroy America. Any action that does not contribute to immediate destruction of America is impossible.
Apparently this stuff is in the air; check out Nate Silver's similar analysis regarding Texas breaking up into five states: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/messing-with-texas.html
Ensuring water rights do strike me as the most difficult part.
From a Senate/Electoral College standpoint, you'd be replacing one reliably liberal state with two reliably liberal states (LA and Bay Area) one swing state (San Diego & Inland Empire) and one reliably conservative state (Central Valley). So it would more or less be a wash in the Senate. On the other hand, Democrats would lose a fair number of reliable Electoral College votes.
Actually, to ensure that the Central Valley is conservative, I'd give some of the the Northern Coast to the Bay Area state and some of far Northern California to Oregon.
I also apologize for the typos! Gah!
I agree it makes sense to split up California. It's just too big to govern effectively. But a north/south split makes more sense to me than jerrymandering the state into hyper-concentrated political factions. Diversity in the state is a good thing and helps prevent extremism on either side from running too wild.
Also read up on the occasionally popular idea of the "State of Jefferson" - Northern California and Southern Oregon.
I have to say that I am more than a little troubled by people who focus purely on political ramifications and not on the pros and cons for the actual state(s) involved.
What about those of us unfortunate enough to live in Imperial County, CA? Where should we fit in? It's an interesting mix. The majority of the population is Hispanic, about 75%-85%, and voting heavily Democratic; the remaining percentage is mostly white and votes largely Republican. Education levels here generally stink; our K-12 schools are often ranked near the bottom (sometimes at the bottom) of state testing levels. We have many native Spanish speakers who don't care to learn English, or don't care to learn English well, because they don't have to; the area is really an more of annexed area of Mexico than anything else, an isolated region (2-4 hours from majaor cities) with heavy bilingual marketing.
In terms of higher education, we have a satellite campus of San Diego State University, which the administration at the main campus in SD is working covertly to destroy (sadly, with assistance from the local campus dean). When the local campus is dismantled, the local students' best hope for a higher education and a chance to get out of here, or to try to build the region up, will be gone.
In terms of identifying with major California cities, there seems to be a split between San Diego (2 hours away over a desolate desert-mountain terrain) and Los Angeles (my preference, and 4 hours away).
Economically, the region remains heavily agricultural. It was also listed (and mocked) recently in the LA Times and other publications as the area with the highest level of unemployment (25%) in the nateion. Plus, we don't generate a large enough tax base for any state representation to give a damn about us, so for that and other reasons, we're the bastard stepchild of CA. If we have any valuable resources, oh, let's say our water pumped in from the Colorado River to keep our farmers going, the big cities, particularly San Diego (one of the most highly overrated cities, IMO), suddenly finds us very attractive and is more than happy to come here and work a deal to steal it from us for a pittance.
So, who do you think in our state would want us?
Both Oregon and Washington suffer from some of the same problems as California. Western Washington is like the bay area in its politics while eastern Washington votes more like Idaho. It will never happen because of the effects on the makeup of congress.
Meant "major" cities. Sorry for the typos above.
Never mind splitting California up---let's kick it OUT.
If you want to split up states, do New York first. Upstaters and Downstaters seriously do not like each other. I see it in the legislature (and elsewhere) all the time; Upstate sees itself as being treated like a backwater, NYC sees itself as the center of the universe and treats Upstaters like backward ribesmen. "Appleknocker" is a very common term they use. Cut it in two along the Westchester County line.
Your servant,
Lord Karth
"ribesmen" should read "tribesmen". Sorry about that.
Your servant,
Lord Karth
I agree it makes sense to split up California. It's just too big to govern effectively.
No, it's just too big to govern effectively with a structure left over from the 1920s.
Los Angeles County (population larger than 40 US States) has grown 10x since then, but we have the same 5 County Supervisor seats which are unaccountable to any County legislative or executive authority. Breaking LA into 100 counties won't solve a thing, but changing the system of governance would.
France and Louisiana should be merged
I think the real question is whether the US should be split up into several regions that are connected by very minimal federal responsibilities (common defense and maybe that's it).
Remember that Texas still has the right to split itself into four states under its US annexation document.
Those interested in these matters might want to look at a book from the late 70's: "The Nine Nations Of North America," by Joel Garreau. (sp?)
As I recall, California was divvied up between three nations: north from the Bay Area and west of the Sierras went to Ecotopia, where it joined the west side of Oregon and Washington, east of the Sierras and north from about the latitude of Bakersfield went to The Empty Quarter, along with the intermountain West and the Great Basin, and everything else became Mexamerica, along with Arizona and New Mexico. Speaking as an isolated small-government guy in western Oregon, I wish we could have Portland as a city state, and everybody else could be Oregon. About 3/4 of our population lives within fifty miles of Portland, and it distorts state politics just as LA and the Bay distort California's politics.
What really needs to be asked about California is how much of it is actually sustainable.
re your proposed SD/OC/Inland Empire state, are you including Imperial Co. and if so, are you factoring in its demographics? If not, where would this state get its water from?
Splitting up California or Texas is all well and good. But I would rather bring back the city-state concept in spots.
For instance, Cleveland/Cuyahoga County should be made to secede from the Union.
Or make the Bay Area into its own country separate from California or its remnants :-D
If the four regions turn out to be as portrayed in this post, it would only accentuate the political extremes and eliminate the need or desire to govern by consensus and compromise. Water battles would ensue for sure, but so would widely varying policies on immigration, use of marijuana, budgeting, trade, taxation, and an array of social issues. It would be a sort of balkanization and quite ugly. The real solution for CA is probably a constitutional convention to elminate the two-thirds vote requirement for a budget, enact redistricting, roll back term limits and modify or eliminate some of the restrictive one-size fits all ballot propositions that cost the state dearly and prevent the fiscal flexibility needed to deal with changing realities.
About 3/4 of our population lives within fifty miles of Portland, and it distorts state politics just as LA and the Bay distort California's politics.
Politics get distorted by people? That's a new one, I'm afraid I don't understand it at all.
LOL... I agree, let's split California. Let's have the religious fundies live amongst themselves. And you thought Taliban rule was bad.
In a country of 300,000,000, does it make sense to have states with fewer then 1.0% of the total U.S. population?
North & South Dakota are both less populated then the city of San Jose, and combined about the size of Phoenix. Taken together, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are about as populated as 30th most populated state, Iowa, which has half-a-million fewer people then Connecticut.
Ironically, the states being hit hardest by this deep recession are some of the ones that will win in any battles over water: Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota, Indiana and New York. The Great Lakes have about 20% of the world's fresh water.
Making D. C. and Manhattan part of Liechtenstein would do a world of good.
One of the interesting things about the article is that it assumes that diversity is in and of itself a problem for governance. That seems a regurgitating of the nativist "know-nothing" anti-Irish-Catholic view. While such narrowness-of-thought is thoroughly American, America has repudiated this idea in every age.
Some might want to check out geographer C. Etzel Pearcy's 1973 proposal to essentially recalibrate the US into 38 states (with all-new names) that made more sense in a modern age, given that previous boundaries were drawn in a way that makes little sense today, e.g. river valleys, not rivers themselves, make for better divisions. A map and explanations can be found at: http://www.tjc.com/38states/
It got a lot of attention in '73, and from time to time since then. (I'd definitely feel an even stronger connection to the "State of Mackinac" than I do to my native Michigan)
Other posters have mentioned that there is an increasing amount of talk about redrawing borders, not just in CA, but TX and elsewhere. I wonder if, combining that with the talk surrounding Randy Barnett's proposed "Bill of Federalism" (passing ten proposed amendments to the Constitution to counter the central government--at the threat of pulling the trigger and calling a new Constitutional Convention), there isn't a growing sentiment in the land to hit the re-set button, rebalance the division of power on this continent, and start fresh.
Let Chicago have it's own state. The rest of the state doesn't have any voice at all.
Gotham City and Metropolis should consolidate.
I'd like to change Maryland drastically.
The Eastern Shore should probably be linked up to coastal Virginia, Nothern Virginia and suburban Maryland should be joined into a DC state, and Western Maryland should be merged into West Virgina (or maybe Pennsylvania). Maryland is a weird state that really doesn't have a unified cultural identity. Not sure what to do with Baltimore - possibly joined with the DC state, although Baltimorians would never stand for that.
Pearcy's map makes sense for much of the South. Certainly the Florida panhandle should go to Alabama as it is much closer to Alabama culturally, though at this point Florida could just as well be divided between North Florida and South Florida as well.
rr
B. Minch,
What about giving western Maryland to West Virginia and then merging all of the rest of Maryland with D.C. and northern and coastal Virginia, calling the new state Chesapeake? That's roughly what Pearcy suggests. Makes sense to me.
rr
The Eastern Shore should probably be linked up to coastal Virginia,
That's been thought of several times since the early 19th century--except they usually add in Delaware to make the State of Delmarva (a truly weird acronym).
As long as we are at suggesting state consolidations, I don't think it would be too shocking to propose that some states (or portions thereof) be relegated back to territorial status. If the "Buffalo Commons" proposal of wild prairie re-creation gets underway, there'd be good reason to carve out huge swaths of land west of the 100th meridian that is continually losing population (in states like TX, OK, NE, KS, and the Dakotas) and return them to either outright federal oversight, tribal governments, or some combination thereof.
It's a start. I'd definitely support something like it (viva la subsidiarity!) but this particular proposal is problematic. It doesn't account for the outlying borders. As someone already said, Nor Cal and eastern Oregon are a natural constituency (geographically, economically, and culturally speaking). It would be best governed by governing itself. Ditto for the Sierra Nevada mountains which are currently arbitrarily divided by the Cal/Nevada border. They too would be best governed as an (autonomous) whole. And I'm not sure about dividing LA from the rest of So Cal. It's all so interconnected that the line he's drawing strikes me as extremely arbitrary (and temporary). The coastal basins are a whole (including Tijuana, but that's another issue). The Central Coast (up to the Bay), coastal mountain ranges, and Central Valley are all fairly interconnected. It probably could be governed well as a whole (it definitely makes more sense than a combined Nor Cal/Central Valley) but it might make sense to separate the coast and mountains from the valley.
I'm all for the Northern/Southern split of California. Split it on whatever line of latitude runs through the middle of Fresno, and let the ownership dispute get settled by burning the thing down. The ash will improve the soil for nearby crops.
But seriously, that would give both North California and South California part of the agriculture of the Central Valley.
I, too, would be in favor of the country breaking up into regional sub-nations: N.E.S.A. - 10 states (Maryland/Delaware/Pennsylvania/New Jersey/New York/Connecticut/Rhode Island/Massachusetts/Vermont/New Hampshire/Maine, Capital - Providence), S.E.S.A. - 12 states (Florida/Georgia/Alabama/Mississippi/Louisiana/Arkansas/Tennessee/Kentucky/West Virginia/Virginia/North Carolina/South Carolina, Capital - Atlanta), TEXAS (No one would join them and they would want independence anyway, Capital - Austin), M.W.S.A. - 14 states (North Dakota/South Dakota/Nebraska/Kansas/Oklahoma/Missouri/Iowa/Minnesota/Wisconsin/Illinois/Indiana/Ohio/Michigan, Capital - Milwaukee), S.W.S.A. - 7 states (Colorado/New Mexico/Utah/Arizona/Nevada/South California/Hawaii, Capital - Phoenix), and N.W.S.A. - 7 states (Alaska/Washington/Oregon/North California/Idaho/Montana/Wyoming, Capital - Portland).
6 Sub-countries with enough population, resources, etc. tied together with a common currency, military and a smaller, more managable representative Federal Government.
It...could...work! Or not. But that's my hare-brained idea.
Mr. Hutchinson's argument isn't remotely persuasive. He seems to think that we disagree, so we should break up. Does any state in the Union have this mythical coherence and solidarity?
However, to an extent he's right that decision-making has been overcentralized. Over the years, court rulings and changes in the state's tax structure have caused the schools, for instance, to essentially be run from Sacramento. Yes, there are local boards and superintendents, but the rules and financing are all set elsewhere.
There were some good reasons, such as equity between rich and poor districts, to level funding statewide -- but the downside is that it erodes local connection to important local institutions. Even in my tax-averse community, voters almost universally support tax increases for school bonds. They'd probably support more generous school funding if the money were raised and spent locally. They emphatically do not support sending more money to Sacramento.
So some decentralization of tax and spending authority makes a lot of sense. Currently, there are about a dozen constitutional reasons why that's impossible in the state.
Oh, and what's with your man's geography? How do you create a state out of the Central Valley that doesn't include Sacramento?
Living in Austin, I am entirely in favor of Dallas forming its own state. They could call in Crunchyconifornia.
Robert,
Seems to me Austin is more Crunchy than Dallas. There's far less hair spray and far more music. ;-)
All kidding aside, some version of the sort of subsidiarist devolution or reconstitution that Jude describes sounds good to me.
I think that having such an option on the table -- even if the option were never exercised -- might at least help to heal our sectional divisions, in the sense that people who gripe about folks in other parts of the country would have to put up or shut up ... at least to some extent.
It would be harder to blame everything that goes wrong on "those" people "down there" or "up there" or "out there" or "back there" if there was at least the hypothetical change of divorcing oneself from "those" people politically.
Of course, we could just go back to adhering to the Constitution that we've already got, but that seems much more like pie-in-the-sky at this point than devolution or reconstitution does.
This is all just tap dancing around the issue. The fundamental problem in CA is that requiring a 2/3rds vote to pass a budget is simply insane. Add in the easy initiative process and you have permanent grid lock.
That is the problem, not the size. The benefit of breaking up into multiple states would seem to be getting a clean slate to write new constitutions. You could skip the breaking up a part and just write a new constitution.
Before breaking up California, can we please break up the following:
Bank of America
Citibank
Goldman Sachs
Wells Fargo
AIG
and any other banks and other institutions that are "too big too fail."
This post about breaking up California reminded me vaguely of a story from The Onion this week:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/texas_constructs_u_s_border_wall?utm_source=a-section
Many states that include large cities are essentially two states--the large city and its environs, and everyplace else (often referred to as "downstate" or "upstate.") Should they be broken up along those lines? It's tempting, for sure. As a Chicagoan, I could easily live without Vienna and St. Anne. Back when I was a Bostonian, I could have done without Worcester. When I was a kid in South Florida, I could for sure have done without Pensacola. But would this run counter to the greater good, by depriving us of having to live with people, and cultures, different from our own? It's like everybody's wacky relatives--sometimes I think family is something providence forces on us to make us associate with people we would never otherwise want to spend time with.
"Seems to me Austin is more Crunchy than Dallas. There's far less hair spray and far more music. ;-)"
I'm with you on the absence of hair spray (gee, I can't remember when I last saw anyone who used hair spray other than Governor Perry) and the presence of music, but conservative, maybe not.
I've heard stories of splitting up California for over 40 years now. It'll never happen....
Isn't Orange County closer economically to LA than San Diego? You can't really tell where OC begins and LA ends. Anaheim (where Disneyland is) is in Orange County, for example. San Diego and OC, on the other hand, are separated by the gigantic Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base.
I think California would work as an administrative unit with the correct governing structure. I see little need to break it up. Despite political differences, there's still a large amount of cultural continuity up and down the coast. Besides, it's the greatest state in the nation. Why break up a good thing?
One definite benefit would be the expansion of California's representation in the Senate. The current system which gives Wyoming 2 senators for ~500,000 people and California the same for ~36 million is extremely undemocratic. One Wyoming voter should not have 36x the influence of a California voter in a free society. (36 not 72 because the Senate is only half of Congress.)
One more thing no one has mentioned - there have been various attempts to break up the state, the last one being an initiative in 1994 to break the state into 3 parts. It was rejected because Southern Californian voters want to maintain access to Northern California water.
John Carpenter's
ESCAPE FROM L.A.
written by
John Carpenter
And
Debra Hill
June 23, 1995
FEMALE NARRATOR (CONT'D): Fearing a massive terrorist invasion from South
America, the United States prepares for war. The Great Wall is built along
the southern border, cutting off the flow of illegal aliens.
FEMALE NARRATOR (CONT'D): Street gangs, South American terrorists and the criminally insane capture Los Angeles, the once-great City of Angels.
FEMALE NARRATOR (CONT'D): Now an island on the border of civilization, L.A. is a no-man's land of chaos, anarchy and darkness.
A red line tracks along the mountainous areas surrounding the island,
defining the perimeter of the armed fortress. Police firebases and gun
emplacements are indicated in the San Gabriel Mountains.
FEMALE NARRATOR (CONT'D): The United States Police Force, like an army, is encamped in the San Gabriel Mountains.
FEMALE NARRATOR (CONT'D): The President's first act as Permanent
Commander-in-Chief is Directive 17: protect and defend the United States from this island of the damned, Hell on Earth.
BLACK SCREEN. SUPERIMPOSE: 2013. NOW.
However much I am in favor of breaking up not only California but a good number of other Political entities worldwide, perhaps those with the desire to part with one side of the political spectrum from another should first consider this informative chart.
http://www.sfbg.com/PDFs/whoispayingandbenefitting.pdf
I think we can split up any state using the logic of political differences. New Jersey has its Alabama and it has its Massachusetts. New York as its Alabama and it has its Massachusetts and yes, Alabama I'm sure has its well Alabama (well, duh) but I'm sure they have one dot on the map that represents Massachusetts.
Why not just, at the state level, grant the cities within them or the counties within them a little more autonomy so that the people of San Francisco are not forcing their values down the throats of those living in Santa Anna and the people in Santa Anna are not shoving their values down the throats of San Francisco. San Francisco students could learn about gay marriages, and safe sex while Santa Anna could promote abstinence and the "virtue" of being a heterosexual.
The state could be responsible for transportation funding, the environment, natural disaster relief, and economic development. The cities and towns for everything else.
California should become its own nation instead.
This paticular break up would not solve the problems of california. Northern California and the Central Valley are two incredibly different places. A seperate 5th state for the northern counties should be considered.
There are many other states that should be broken up
NY city/Long Island and Upstate NY should be there own states.
Upper and lower Michigan.
The Florida Peninsula and the Panhandle
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