Samuel Metz, Palm Springs Desert Sun, USA TODAY
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PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — In Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs have heralded innovations like smartphones and car-sharing. Now, Tim Draper, one of the valley’s most successful venture capitalists, wants to similarly shake up the way California is governed by dividing it into three states — “Northern California,” “Southern California,” and “California.”
Last week, Draper and supporters, calling themselves “Cal 3,” submitted enough signatures to have their divide-the-state initiative appear on California ballots in the upcoming midterm elections.
But if they want it to pass, they’ll need to convince voters in California’s other valleys, including the Imperial Valley and the Coachella Valley, that the proposal is more than an out-there idea from an eccentric billionaire.
So far, the proposal has generated backlash on both sides of the aisle. After the initiative qualified for the ballot, both parties’ candidates for governor came out against it. And earlier, in April, SurveyUSA released polling suggesting only 17 percent of the electorate would vote to divide the state in three.
The “Southern California” that Cal 3 proposes would be comprised of 11 counties including San Diego, Orange, Riverside, Imperial and San Bernardino.
Shaun Bowles, a political science professor at University of California-Riverside, said he was worried about the arbitrary manner in which the lines were drawn and how they could affect less affluent parts of California.
“It’s almost like one of those gerrymandered electoral districts we sometimes see. Or maybe a better analogy is that, under this proposed plan, the state is divided into districts, like in The Hunger Games — and we are seen as the Farming District,” he said of “Southern California.”
Out of the three proposed states, “Southern California” would be the poorest, with a per capita income of $43,000, ranked 30th in the nation.
“Northern California,” which would include Silicon Valley, would be the nation’s second-richest state, with a per-capita personal income of $63,000. And “California,” which would include Los Angeles, would be the nation’s 12th-richest state.
Now that Cal 3 will appear on the ballot, its supporters are beginning to reach out to local political activists throughout California, particularly outside Los Angeles and the Bay Area, Cal 3 spokesperson Peggy Grande said.
Although Southern California would be the poorest of the three states, Grande said organizers weren’t worried the proposed division would segregate the rich from the poor.
”We’re not worried that Southern California will suffer. In fact, we believe they will have the greatest opportunity for growth and improvement,” she said.
”We’re not worried that Southern California will suffer. In fact, we believe they will have the greatest opportunity for growth and improvement,” she said.
“California is broken and can’t be fixed on the path that we’re on,” Grande explained, because “it’s too big to function and govern.”
As a result, “So much of the Inland Empire and agricultural areas are being completely ignored by Sacramento,” she said.
Dividing California would localize decision-making to give counties like Riverside and Imperial “a larger seat at a smaller table,” and enable government to address problems facing the state’s education system and crumbling infrastructure, Grande said.
Many of Cal 3’s talking points overlap with those used by Republican candidates for statewide office, who regularly admonish the perils of big government, and describe the state as broken. But Grande said the campaign will also work to sway Democrats who believe the political system leaves many — including the poor and people who live in rural areas — unheard.
“We expect we will receive support from both sides of the political aisle,” she said. “We think that the problems here in California affect everybody from every socioeconomic background and geography and from every demographic. We think the solution should fit everybody.”
It’s hardly the first time Californians have considered slicing up their state. The idea was first proposed in 1859, and there have been more than 200 proposals since, according to the Cal 3 campaign.
In 2014, Draper led efforts to place a proposal on the state ballot that would have have split California into six states. But after the Secretary of State found a portion of the signatures Draper’s group submitted invalid, the initiative was left off the ballot.
And even if the initiative passes, to split up, California would need approval from Congress and the state legislature, according to an analysis by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Cal 3 differs from all previous failed attempts to divide the state because of the way the lines were “thoughtfully created,” Grande said. The three proposed states would have roughly similar population sizes and median household incomes. But the state’s tax revenue, as well as the problems it faces around issues like water scarcity and housing, would not be distributed evenly among the three proposed states.
Joe Rodota, the founder and co-manager of OneCalifornia, a bipartisan group opposed to Cal 3, called the proposal “flawed, goofy, and difficult to take seriously.”
Because of California’s capital gains taxes, Rodota said he worried tax revenue wouldn’t be evenly distributed among the three proposed states, which could hurt “Southern California.”
He also expressed concerns about the potential effects the split could have on the Inland Empire’s economy and higher education system.
Not only would residents of the proposed “Southern California” no longer be in-state students at some of the state’s oldest universities, like UC Berkeley and UCLA, smaller UC schools could also languish.
“What happens when all these other Californians now would have to pay out-of-state tuition to attend UC Riverside? Would they even come? Enrollment in those places could actually collapse,” he said.
In the Inland Empire, where a 2011 study found 20 percent of residents commute to work outside the region, Rodota said, new state lines could reclassify economic activity as interstate commerce and subject it to federal regulation.
“A lot of these transactions across county lines would then happen along state lines and therefore become interstate commerce. What happens in a family where mom works in Los Angeles County and dad works in Riverside?” he asked.
Jonathan Ingram, the Riverside County Republican Party chairman, said he was sympathetic to the concerns Cal 3 based their proposal on, but opposed it because he was concerned the split could never actually be implemented.
As a Republican and a resident of the Inland Empire, Ingram said he understood why the proposal is seductive to people who don’t feel represented in state government. But he said he was more concerned with electing conservative candidates and mobilizing support for proposals like the gas tax repeal, another initiative that will appear on November’s ballot.
“This all has to do with people’s frustration,” he said of Cal 3.
“A multitude of issues have boiled to the top, and people are looking for radical solutions because government is not bringing solutions to the table… Philosophically, it would be great to have three states, but I don’t know if it’s relevant or can be done.”
Annette Gonzalez-Buttner, the chairperson of the Imperial County Democratic Party, said the proposed lines wouldn’t solve her county’s problems because, in “Southern California,” it would just be Orange and San Diego counties dominating the policy priorities rather than Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
Like Ingram, Gonzalez-Buttner also said she was more focused on specific issues than ideas like Cal 3. Regardless of what happens at a state level, she said, “We still have to clean up governance messes of our own creation and fix the problems we can fix,” mentioning education and jobs as two issues of concern to Imperial County Democrats.
Republican State Senator Jeff Stone doesn’t see Cal 3 as a distraction.
“My hope is that having this advisory vote on the ballot will force those leaders who fail to recognize the importance of inland communities to finally pay attention to the hard working people who make it possible for those who live with ocean views to live such a peaceful and tranquil life,” he said in an emailed statement.
Stone said the Cal 3 proposal was “intriguing,” but stopped short of saying whether he was for or against.
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