Timothy Draper, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, has successfully collected enough signatures to put his proposal to split California up into six states on the 2016 California ballot.
This would serve to beat the San Francisco – Los Angeles axis that throttles the rest of the state.
The political consequences have previously been explored, but some of the most important highlights are noted below. Also, open comments.
Electoral College
If the house seats are assigned by population of the resulting new states, the electoral college votes each state would have would be:
- “Jefferson” = 3
- “Northern California” = 7
- “Silicon Valley” = 12
- “Central California” = 8
- “West California” = 18
- “Southern California” = 17
If the 2012 election were held with those states and their electoral votes in place, Romney would have gotten 11 electoral votes, while Obama received 54 electoral vote. This would have been a net electoral vote gain of 12 for Romney.
Additionally, “South California” would have been competitive. Though Obama won it very narrowly, those counties also voted for GOP 2014 Attorney General candidate Steve Cooley in 2010. “South California” would also have a GOP plurality in registration.
U.S. Senate
As noted previously:
“Of the ten new Senators, assigning the current Cal Senators to ‘Silicon Valley,’ one state that would always send Dems (L.A. dominated ‘West California’), two states that would likely send GOP (‘Jefferson’ and ‘Central California’), one that would probably send GOP, but an occasional Dem (‘South California’), and one that would send Dems, but where the GOP has a fighting chance (‘Northern California’).”
Future of the New States
Above all else, the trajectories of each of the new states would diverge from the current state of California.
The San Fransisco – Los Angeles axis that controls California would be no more. At present Sen Fransisco and the Bay Area control California, and do so with the electoral support of the Los Angeles. By splitting these two areas into their own state, the rest of the states would be liberated… hopefully before the rot from San Francisco too deeply infects the rest of the state.
As noted previously:
“The politics of the states would not remain static, though. Sacramento is dominated by Bay Area politicians, who are electorally supported by L.A. county. By confining the insanity to the state of ‘Silicon Valley,’ the rest of the state would become much more conservative (even L.A., which is saying something). You’d have new states that were friendly to the sane and the conservative.
“We could easily see ‘Southern California’ gaining a lot of population due to is moderate to conservative (or at least libertarian-conservative) leanings, in addition to the presence of established infrastructure.
“The state of ‘Northern California’ could even be converted to a relatively conservative area if there is enough of an influx — it would contain Napa county and Sonoma county, but be balanced by Placer county and the other mountain/valley counties inland.
“The bulk of the farmland, and control of much of the water, would be in the hands of GOP friendly ‘Central California’ and would likely become a beacon for any and all farmers once again. They would control the water, which would give them a heck of a lot of power. What would happen to the Owens valley (from which L.A. stole its water), would be… interesting.
” Heck, even ‘West California’ would see a significant slowing of its Left-ward drift due to not being a border state anymore, as well as being free from San Francisco.”
We’ll find out what Californian’s think in 2016!
