Following up on the West Virginia story, would it be a good idea if California followed the provisions in the Constitution and ask to subdivide into more than one State?
California is home to 37 million people (more than 10% of the entire 50 states) and is responsible for around 13% of the entire country’s GDP.
At the national level, the main effect would be on the United States Senate. Let’s say California was broken into the states of Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, San Francisco and the Valley. 8 new Senators would be elected. A State subdividing requires the consent of the State being divided and Congress (it’s not 100% clear if that means the President has to sign off on it)
Probably the biggest issue in California is the issue of how to divide up the debt (and future unfunded obligations) of the current State of California. Lenders lent money to the state based on the promise of the entire State standing behind the debt. When a married couple divorces, the judge has no power to free one of the couple from their promise to pay the mortgage if both signed the loan.
Once the division is completed, the State of Los Angeles can make Spanish the official language language of Los Angelese, adopt the Mexican flag as the state flag, promise free food and housing to all Mexican immigrants – but the rest of the State won’t have to pay for it.
So how do you like that idea?
The “California Divide” has been a topic du jour for decades in that once great state. I achieved my masters from USC, and remember such discussions well. The North believes, and I think probably rightly, that its water is all the south really wants. The north doesn’t want much much of anything from the south. Just give me a little red shack in Truckee.
The north would have a government that understands there are consequences to actions? Not likely. I never bought into the PR BullS— about ‘the greatest generation’ make me puke and I’ll clean it up with pages from Brokaw’s book. I do buy into the the ‘greatest parasitic generation’. We have great swaths of parasites (agriculture in the valley, not just the morally bankrupt southern calif) in all the states. Turn off the spigot, let them die out, restart the Republic. I’m a small business founder and owner who is not to large to fail and would (if offered) refuse Washington’s (evil) offers.
Start in California… and move to New York next. Up here it’s a different dynamic: you have downstate (which includes NYC) which is doing relatively well and an impoverished upstate that is crumbling but can’t get anyone to listen.
…our fearless leader Obama’s statement about us having 57 states may be prophetic.
Florida has its own Mason-Dixon line as well.
But I favor annexation of Mexico. Sooner or later they’ll all be here anyway. We were once in “The Halls of Montezuma.”Why did we ever retreat?