California Supreme Court blocks proposal to split state in 3 from November ballot
The California Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked a proposal that would split the state into three from the November ballot.
The court wrote that it took the step "because significant questions have been raised regarding the proposition's validity and because we conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election."
Last week, an environmental group sued to have the measure removed from the ballot. To substantially alter the state's governance under the California constitution, the group argued, a constitutional convention would need to be called -- and that requires a supermajority of both houses of the state's legislature. A ballot initiative, the group said, was constitutionally insufficient.
See also: Billionaire Tim Draper Abandons Push to Split California Into Three
Asked if he would continue fighting for the measure, Draper said in an email to Bloomberg News that "the same six lawyers are going to make the decision. What would be the point? They have just proven that California has a runaway government and the people have no say."
Draper, a venture capitalist, sought the initiative because he said the world's fifth-largest economy is "nearly ungovernable" under the current system. Asked if there was anything else he planned to do to make the government more accountable, he said he was "still recovering from the shock."
Previously: Proposal to Divide California Into Three States Could Land on the November Ballot
Ballot Measure to Split California Into Three States Will Appear on the November 2018 Ballot
Related Stories
A California technology billionaire said on Thursday that his longtime and perhaps quixotic effort to partition the Golden State into multiple new states could soon be put before voters.
Venture capitalist Tim Draper said he had gathered about 600,000 signatures on a petition to put his proposal to divide California on the November ballot, more than the 366,000 needed to qualify. It is his third attempt to get voters to weigh in on his call to break up the most populous U.S. state.
Draper, who in 2014 and 2016 failed in his efforts to win approval for a ballot initiative to divide the state into six parts, said in a news release Thursday that he planned to file the signatures with election officials next week.
[...] To go into effect, California would first have to certify the signatures that Draper has gathered, and then voters in November would need to pass the measure. After that, the U.S. Congress would have to approve it.
Also at The Mercury News and SFGate.
Related:
Secessionists Formally Launch Quest for California's Independence
California Secession Leader has Russian Ties
Calexit: the "Bad Boys of Brexit" Throw Their Weight Behind Move to Split State
Radical plan to split California into three states earns spot on November ballot
California's 168-year run as a single entity, hugging the continent's edge for hundreds of miles and sprawling east across mountains and desert, could come to an end next year — as a controversial plan to split the Golden State into three new jurisdictions qualified Tuesday for the Nov. 6 ballot.
If a majority of voters who cast ballots agree, a long and contentious process would begin for three separate states to take the place of California, with one primarily centered around Los Angeles and the other two divvying up the counties to the north and south. Completion of the radical plan — far from certain, given its many hurdles at judicial, state and federal levels — would make history.
It would be the first division of an existing U.S. state since the creation of West Virginia in 1863.
Previously: Proposal to Divide California Into Three States Could Land on the November Ballot
Related: Secessionists Formally Launch Quest for California's Independence
California Secession Leader has Russian Ties
Calexit: the "Bad Boys of Brexit" Throw Their Weight Behind Move to Split State
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 24 2018, @11:32AM (26 children)
As much grief as I like to give the west coast, that looks like the proper decision. The state question should have required the legislature to convene a constitutional convention for this purpose rather than trying to end run the state constitution. See, folks, that is what it looks like to support things being done according to the law rather than getting what you want via a clearly illegal ruling.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:00PM (23 children)
Problem: The legislatures gerrymander to force the majorities the interests of the minorities.
Solution: Make gerrymandering illegal.
Problem: Only the legislatures can do that.
Solution: Have a ballot making gerrymandering illegal.
Problem: The court said such a ballot is illegal.
Solution: Break apart the state to three to make gerrymandering impossible.
Problem: The court said such a ballot is illegal.
.
.
.
Solution: Pick up arms and kill the judges and legislatures.
Am I missing anything?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:18PM (15 children)
Funny how breaking the state into three the proposed way just happens to make three blue states and adds two Democrat senators to the US Congress. Definitely not an act of gerrymandering in and of itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:21PM (2 children)
Did I say two senators? I meant four.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday July 25 2018, @11:35PM (1 child)
And you were horribly wrong in both cases.
Coastal CA is very Blue. Any state formed more than 30 miles from the ocean would be Red. Very Red. Breaking up CA would add R senators, not D ones.
/TMYK
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday July 27 2018, @04:53PM
I haven't looked at it in a couple weeks but I recall thinking that three CAs would end up with a republican advantage in the electoral college but a democratic advantage in house and senate.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:24PM (3 children)
the very fact you think red/blue is the reason shows perhaps a lack of understanding.
I saw the map and thought "money".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @01:21PM (1 child)
The divide has nothing to do with money, unless it's to make sure enough of it, and the people who control it, ends up in all three states.
This is gerrymandering. Silicon Valley is not "Northern California". Cut the state along ideological lines and let the coastal democrats and rural republicans go their own ways. This proposal just found a way to alienate rural voters in three states instead of one.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @04:32PM
California is controlled by democrats who are don't wish to let the republicans leave. Think of the advantages:
1. Democrats always control the vote outcome.
2. Electoral vote totals are based on population.
3. The population happens to include many angry miserable republicans. Ha, ha! Their electoral votes go to people they hate.
If the state were split, national politics would change. Of course, this does not mean that democrats would lose more often. It means that the democratic policy positions would change as required for getting elected in the new reality.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:28PM
Exactly. There was a grass-roots movement back in the 1940's, where the northern part of California was going to secede from the state. The division line made some kind of sense - the more conservative north, breaking away from the liberal south. Whether one agreed with it or not, it made some kind of sense, for the people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_%28proposed_Pacific_state%29 [wikipedia.org]
This three-part division wasn't anything the people thought up, or wanted. It was entirely corporate driven. No people were going to benefit, only corporations, and the top 1% would have derived anything "good" from it.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:33PM (7 children)
It's not gerrymandering since the voters will retain (or increase) their voting power. The problem with gerrymandering is how a minority gains power over a majority by playing around with district borders. The Democrats already have the polarity majority so if this move happens to restore their control over the House it's the exact opposite of the current gerrymandering.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:46PM (3 children)
Actually the mere possibility of gerrymandering means that the voting system is broken. A sane voting system will give consistent results independent of arbitrary changes of voting district borders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @08:12PM (2 children)
Yeah, I can't name any other systems either. Nice pipe dream you have there, though.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 24 2018, @10:06PM
Actually, he pretty much did. His system, i.e. "No matter how you draw the district boundaries, it doesn't affect the results." is essentially straight system wide voting, with anyone can vote for any candidate. No matter what the implementation details, that would be the essence of it.
FWIW, I even see the merit to a version of it that I call "subscription voting", where basically there aren't elections. Anyone can show up to vote, and they have a list (how to validate?) of people that have given they their "proxy". They key is that anyone at any time can invalidate their proxy and switch it to someone else. And that any one person can only give their proxy to one member of the legislative house. This would *probably* be legal on a state level, but on a federal level it would be in violation of the constitution, and the courts might even decide that on a state level it didn't constitute "a republican form of government".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 24 2018, @10:10PM
You have not thought about it very hard then, nor have you done even a basic search to find out how other countries arrange their electoral systems.
It will no doubt surprise you to find out that countries that have properly democratic electoral systems actually have their electoral boundaries set by an independent commission.
I know you in the US are resigned to your system of two state-sanctioned parties and their pretence of opposition, but it's actually not hard to keep politicians out of setting electoral boundaries. it's no coincidence that gerrymandering is an American term.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @01:18PM (2 children)
The increased voting power comes at the expense of a decrease in voting power for the other 49 states once California gets six senators instead of two.
It's gerrymandering on a national level.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:03PM
Who said we have to recognize whatever splinters off from California as a new state?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @07:10PM
Reducing the ratio of voters:congress critters decreases the ability to gerrymander effectively because then smaller changes in demographics are needed to screw up your carefully plotted scheme.
If that reduces the power of people who already wield a disproportionate amount of power relative to their population is not a bug, it's a feature.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:47PM (1 child)
Problem: your new revolutionary council overloads turn out to be just as human and corruptable as the old lot, except they can now openly use, well, force to force their interests on the majorities.
Remember folks - you don't have to be a psychopath to want to rule but - hell, who are we kidding, of course you do! Choosing a government is always about finding the least bad candidate, not the best. Even if you find the perfect benevolent dictator for life, they'll have kids. Or get assassinated (probably by their kids). Even imperfect democracy at least gives you a fighting chance of getting rid of a bad leader without letting the dogs out.
People are a problem.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:37PM
Written by some shakey old dude, long ago.
Sung by some shakey younger dudes, more recently
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 24 2018, @01:11PM
Logic, I approve. Next time maybe we'll know better than to use (only) geographic districts. There is no possible way they will ever be fair.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @01:25PM
Solution: Find a number of people willing to be single-term legislators who agree with the anti-gerrymandering sentiment. Elect them, have them pass the law, and then bow out gracefully at the ends of their terms.
The shock value of "bow out gracefully" might be enough to do in a few of the more hardened partisans on all sides - which could be chalked up as an added benefit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:26PM
There are legal ways to do that. Those should be tried first.
Further, this is a silly and immature argument since you don't show that you have a problem or that you have fixes to the problem. For example, if we make gerrymandering illegal, but have great ambiguity in the law as to how gerrymandering is defined or fixed, then that allows the courts to gerrymander instead of the legislative branch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @04:30PM (1 child)
Your storyline is misleading at best (if not outright deceptive). If the goal is to eliminate gerrymandering, there are far more ways which are far less invasive, dramatic, and extreme to do so.
For example:
1) Ballot to change how districts are delineated.
2) Convene a constitutional convention to amend the California Constitution to change how districts are defined.
Neither of those would require a literal act of congress by the federal government, and solve your gerrymandering problem.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 24 2018, @10:10PM
I think he's objecting that the current boundaries are so gerrymandered that a fair result along your proposed route is impossible. I'm not sure he's wrong, but I'm rather certain that his proposed approach would yield a worse result.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:32PM (1 child)
Just have a vote for a new constitution and claim the old one is void. Worked for the original California 1849 constitution which was neither amended or repealed.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 24 2018, @08:13PM
Where's the fun in that when you could have a bloody revolution instead?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday July 24 2018, @01:08PM (2 children)
Would have been nice to see how the vote went so we can gauge the sentiment. If it passed then the court could have invalidated it.
It's just a fact of life that people with brains the size of grapes have mouths the size of watermelons. -- Aunty Acid
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:11PM (1 child)
According to recent polls, and everyone I talked to about it, the Proposition would have failed miserably anyway.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 24 2018, @10:13PM
I suspect that the voting on the measure would have given results that varied systematically by location, so "the people I've talked to" doesn't signify much. Still, that's the way I, also, would expect the vote to have gone. But I, also, only have local information. I have a brother who picks up just the opposite feel. (Truthfully, I suspect him of being an outlier even in his locale, but that's just my feeling, and it might be wrong.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:43PM (11 children)
I wonder how many people would be bothering to push for this if we just fixed the electoral college.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:29PM (1 child)
Less? Keep in mind that a significant fraction of the voting population doesn't want the electoral college fixed. Little states would become far less relevant in presidential elections.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday July 24 2018, @05:30PM
Good point. Also it's unclear who, exactly, would benefit from califorexit.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Troll) by Arik on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:01PM (6 children)
First prove it's broken.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @07:38PM (3 children)
The electoral college is allowed to make anyone they choose president.
Yes, the people choose the electors (in a round about fashion), but the electors choose the president, and there are very few rules on how they do so. Those rules that exist are state rules punishing electors that go against their mandate, but the elector can still vote for whomever they wish, regardless of what people want.
Is this sufficient proof?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Tuesday July 24 2018, @08:04PM (2 children)
Working as designed, so no, that's not proof at all.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Tuesday July 24 2018, @10:17PM (1 child)
When the claim is that the design is broken, "Working as designed" is not proof that it isn't broken. OTOH, I'm not certain to what extent that claim is correct. In order to judge that, I'd need to compare it against the proposed fix.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday July 24 2018, @10:27PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @12:58AM (1 child)
Simple. It's derived in large part from the formula for # of reps which is supposed to be proportional, but because it's really 1+(state pop/country pop)*335, the small states have an double advantage from both their Senators and their minimum 1 rep.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday July 25 2018, @01:21AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Tuesday July 24 2018, @07:01PM
They'd still be trying. It's not about the Electoral College. It's a resource grab by mining and timber companies. The northernmost state in this scheme would be poorer than Alabama and have an easily corrupted legislature. Bye-bye redwoods, and they'll sell the water too.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Wednesday July 25 2018, @12:25AM
There's nothing wrong with it. Working as intended. The last result may have not been what you wanted, but that alone is not sufficient reason to go around telling people we need to all get together and flip the table over.
To be clear, the last thing I ever want is a straight-up democratic election of our president. It would be a disaster.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by stretch611 on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:00PM (3 children)
If the court did not stop it, from what I heard about its polling, the voters would have killed it.
Even if CA voters approved it, it would still need to be approved by the US congress. That would never happen. While congressional districts would probably remain the same, splitting up CA would add 4 senators... Currently, CA is a havy democrat statee, it would make 2 heavy democrat states and a 3rd state that could be a swing vote, but would still lean democrat. There is no way that the current republican controlled senate would ever allow their power to be diminished like that.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:17PM
Puerto Rico 51st state!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:26PM (1 child)
"That would never happen. [...] There is no way that the current republican controlled senate would ever allow their power to be diminished like that."
How do you get to "never"? The current Senate runs until next January. In this year's elections, 33 Senate seats are being contested.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by stretch611 on Tuesday July 24 2018, @04:04PM
Actually, this year there are 35 senate seats with elections....
However, 26 of them are currently democratic/independent seats and only 9 are republican. Of course that includes seats that are extremely unlikely to flip as well. If you only includes seats that have a chance to flip hands, you are looking at only 14 competitive seats, 11 of which are currently in the hands of democrats and 3 repubilican seats.
So in order for the senate to return to democratic control this year, the dems have to fight to keep all those 11 seats, and gain 2 of the 3 republican seats. Also in thie current scenario, some of the democratic senators are in states that voted for trump in 2016 in significant nubmers, and the republicans are going to use the vote for Kavanaugh on the supreme court to put them in a lose/lose situation (vote for Kavanagh and lose support from your base, vote against him and lose support from moderates on the other side.)
While it is possible for dems to gain control of the senate, it will require a few minor miracles in order to happen.
More detail analysis here... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/07/20/the-top-10-senate-races-give-democrats-a-narrow-opening-to-win-the-senate/?noredirect=on [washingtonpost.com]
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P