We previously covered the petition drive to put on the ballot this November a Proposition to split California into six states, Are six Californias better than one?:
The idea of splitting California into pieces is not new. The procedural hurdles are monumental, and perhaps insurmountable, but the idea doesn’t go away.CAlifornia is too damn big to govern, and has differing regional qualities that would make sense to separate out rather than bury under one state government.From a national political point of view, a break up would be a mixed bag. Yes, it might (might, not would) break the now near-permanent condition of all those electoral votes going Democrats without a fight.But as separate states, wouldn’t they be entitled to two Senator each? The more Californias there are, the more Democratic Senators we are likely to have, although depending on how the split-up takes place, perhaps it would be more neutral.
Unfortunately, the Proposition will not be on the ballot because they fell just short of the required signatures, although there may be challenges to the count.
The Sacramento Bee reports, Six Californias initiative fails to make 2016 ballot:
A proposed ballot measure to carve California into six states failed to qualify for the November 2016 ballot Friday after election officials determined that backers did not collect enough valid signatures….The measure needed 807,615 valid voter signatures to qualify, and the Six Californias campaign turned in nearly 1.14 million in mid-July. But several weeks of random signature checks that ended Friday determined that only 752,685 signatures were valid – almost 15,000 signatures below the threshold needed to launch a full count of every signature.In a statement, Draper said he is convinced that the campaign turned in enough valid voter signatures to qualify his measure. He said the campaign will review signatures deemed invalid in several counties, noting that the campaign’s signature-gathering firm had projected that many more signatures would be valid than did election officials.
Was it even a good idea to break California into six pieces?
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