I read, from Evanier, but also elsewhere, that some joker has promoted a ballot initiative to split the Golden State into six states. Even if the ballot initiative somehow won in November – and I have relatives there (sister, niece – Don’t Vote for This Nonsense!) – it still wouldn’t go into effect. Evanier noted, in a conversation about whether Texas, which had been its own country briefly, and would theoretically have the right to splinter:
“You have to consider Article IV, Section 3 of a little document called the United States Constitution. That particular section says…”
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.
If you are a US Senator from a small state, populationwise, such as Delaware or Alaska, would you want there to be 12 US Senators from CA when there were two? And if you were from a large state, say Florida or Illinois, why would you want them to have many more Senators than your state?
BTW, Chuck Miller, my fellow blogger with the Times Union, came up with what a divided up New York State might look like. It was a highlighted blog for that day.
Given the disdain with which most of the American people see Congress, creating MORE members, with the requisite expense, does not seem like a winning scenario.
Americans view Congress with disdain…and yet incumbents will almost certainly be resoundingly reelected.
Wow, waste of time.
HOW ABOUT THIS? The Republican platform for the state of Wisconsin this year has (toward the very end, when people have stopped reading) a provision allowing Wisconsin the right to ignore the EPA; another to ignore the federal government entirely (except for, you know, Citizens United and other really important B.S.); and, most importantly, a recommendation to SECEDE from the Union. I kid you not. This is Scott Walker’s state (for now); the rest of us just dig anthills in it. Amy
Much of New York is upstate; but some parts, apparently, are upstater than others.
There is a movement afoot by the lazy rich, the corporate elite and the anti-American radical right to dissolve the nation state. This California division ballot initiative is part of that movement. But why are they doing this? They believe that the nation state is an anachronism that ought to be replaced by international corporations. Seriously. That’s what “Drown government in a bathtub” means. Ultimately their plan is to dissolve the United States itself, which I consider treason. I believe the whole lot of them ought to receive the appropriate punishment for betraying their country.