51st state? California politician pushes secession plan

Started by KRonn, July 15, 2011, 04:32:27 PM

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KRonn

I doubt if this has any chance. But given how large California is, splitting the state seems like it makes some sense. Aside from the political pandering/ideology type stuff.

Quote

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/14/california.secession/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

51st state? California politician pushes secession plan

Riverside, California (CNN) -- A conservative county supervisor in Southern California wants to form the 51st state by seceding the region from California, saying the state's problems require "radical" solutions.

"Listen, I knew I'd be criticized. I learned in my tenure of being a politician for 19 years, sometimes you have to do radical things to get people's attention," Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone said on CNN Thursday.

"We have hit a nerve with citizens who are just fed up with business as usual in the state," Stone said. "I'm talking about a secession plan from the state of California."

This week, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors gave the OK to Stone to hold a summit of California's local leaders to discuss remedies for the state's long list of woes -- including secession.

But the county board stopped short of endorsing Stone's secessionist plan by insisting no taxpayer money be used for the conference.

Stone has come up with a name for the new state: South California. It would be composed of 13 largely Republican counties, most of which are inland along the Nevada and Arizona state lines. The plan would exclude Los Angeles County, but would include Orange and San Diego Counties, both on the coast.

Stone has a long list of grievances against the state and its legislators: high taxes and fees, inability to reform welfare programs, high unemployment and excessive regulations.

"What the state has done is they've been balancing their budgets on the backs of our local coffers. They've been stealing our sales tax, property tax," Stone said. "The bottom line for me and my constituents is jobs. We are sending jobs out of the state of California by the train load."

Riverside County is among the hardest hit communities by the recession and mortgage meltdown, leaving many communities pockmarked with vacant homes, Stone said.

"We are the foreclosure capital of the world," Stone asserted. "We have some areas of the county that have 25% unemployment. The average in Riverside County is about 15%."

Stone's plan seems a long shot, one analyst said. There have been at least 27 efforts for secession within parts of California since the 1800s, and none has been successful.

Robert Melsh, a political science instructor at Mount San Jacinto College in San Jacinto, California, which is in Riverside County, said Stone's plan stunned him, largely because of the high cost of putting a secessionist plan before voters. He called it a "scare tactic."

"Insanity," Melsh said. "I mean this is major surgery where we need a Band-Aid.

"It takes millions of dollars to get the signatures necessary to put up an initiative," Melsh added.

Melsh also raised the question of getting a 51st state's government up and running.

"Where is he going to put the capitol? Disneyland?" Melsh said.

Stone, a pharmacist and owner of an innovative compounding pharmacy, said he drew the lines for a new state by picking 13 counties that were contiguous and fiscally conservative or moderate.

A date for the summit of local leaders has yet to be scheduled, he said.

mongers

Quote from: KRonn on July 15, 2011, 04:32:27 PM
I doubt if this has any chance. But given how large California is, splitting the state seems like it makes some sense. Aside from the political pandering/ideology type stuff.

Excellent, Garbon will be conscripted into the Army of the Bay.  :cool:
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

garbon

Quote from: mongers on July 15, 2011, 04:38:31 PM
Excellent, Garbon will be conscripted into the Army of the Bay.  :cool:

I don't think New York would allow one of it's residents to be grabbed up.

Also, KRonn, I don't think a Southern California without LA makes sense. Just no.
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I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

MadImmortalMan

The region on the map looks like a logical extension of Nevada. Time to annex!
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KRonn

Quote from: garbon on July 15, 2011, 04:45:05 PM
Quote from: mongers on July 15, 2011, 04:38:31 PM
Excellent, Garbon will be conscripted into the Army of the Bay.  :cool:

I don't think New York would allow one of it's residents to be grabbed up.

Also, KRonn, I don't think a Southern California without LA makes sense. Just no.
Well, I don't think Southern Cal w/o LA makes sense either. But I wonder if the idea of a split makes some sense? Some other states are huge with large populations, like Texas. But Cali is a huge part of the western coastline, like from Florida to Virginia on the east coast. I don't necessarily want to see a split, don't care either way.

Fate

The entire purpose of the split is to create a Republican state. If they carve out a Democratic state from Texas, then sure.  :lol:

Viking

Quote from: Fate on July 15, 2011, 11:23:12 PM
The entire purpose of the split is to create a Republican state. If they carve out a Democratic state from Texas, then sure.  :lol:

Metropolexas - A state consisting of the downtown areas of Austin, Houston, Ft Worth, Dallas as well as the campus area of U of Texas at Austin.
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

Eddie Teach

Quote from: Viking on July 16, 2011, 03:49:10 AM
Quote from: Fate on July 15, 2011, 11:23:12 PM
The entire purpose of the split is to create a Republican state. If they carve out a Democratic state from Texas, then sure.  :lol:

Metropolexas - A state consisting of the downtown areas of Austin, Houston, Ft Worth, Dallas as well as the campus area of U of Texas at Austin.

That would suck for all the UT students who were now out-of-state and had to pay higher tuition.
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

Josquius

Splitting California makes sense.
Along these lines does not.
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JonasSalk

QuoteArticle IV, Section 3: Section 3 - New States

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.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Good luck getting congress to sign off on that!
Yuman

grumbler

Quote from: JonasSalk on July 16, 2011, 11:02:29 AM
QuoteArticle IV, Section 3: Section 3 - New States

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.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Good luck getting congress to sign off on that!
As I read this, Congress cannot sign off on "new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State;" that is a separate clause.  Makes West Virginia's existence kind of an interesting exercise in ignoring what was written in favor of what the readers (Lincoln's administration and Congress) wanted to see.
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Bayraktar!

Fate

Quote from: Viking on July 16, 2011, 03:49:10 AM
Quote from: Fate on July 15, 2011, 11:23:12 PM
The entire purpose of the split is to create a Republican state. If they carve out a Democratic state from Texas, then sure.  :lol:

Metropolexas - A state consisting of the downtown areas of Austin, Houston, Ft Worth, Dallas as well as the campus area of U of Texas at Austin.

:D

Although a more realistic option could be a state that encompass El Paso, Austin, San Antonio and the Rio Grande region. We could call it Tejas.

Admiral Yi

Quote from: Fate on July 15, 2011, 11:23:12 PM
The entire purpose of the split is to create a Republican state. If they carve out a Democratic state from Texas, then sure.  :lol:

The entire stated purpose is to split off net revenue contributors from revenue consumers (i.e. LA).

Razgovory

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 16, 2011, 01:36:32 PM
Quote from: Fate on July 15, 2011, 11:23:12 PM
The entire purpose of the split is to create a Republican state. If they carve out a Democratic state from Texas, then sure.  :lol:

The entire stated purpose is to split off net revenue contributors from revenue consumers (i.e. LA).

Really?  I would think it's the other way around.  Cities are more cost efficient then rural areas, and generate more revenue.  It costs much more to provide road service to say 100,000 people in rural Montana then it does to provide road service to 100,000 people in Newark, New Jersey.  Not to mention the fact that urban areas tend to have higher pay rates (which is balanced by higher costs in goods), then rural areas.  When this is taken as a percentage in tax the urban areas are likely to generate greater revenue per person then a rural area.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Admiral Yi

Quote from: Razgovory on July 16, 2011, 01:53:42 PM
Really?  I would think it's the other way around.  Cities are more cost efficient then rural areas, and generate more revenue.  It costs much more to provide road service to say 100,000 people in rural Montana then it does to provide road service to 100,000 people in Newark, New Jersey.  Not to mention the fact that urban areas tend to have higher pay rates (which is balanced by higher costs in goods), then rural areas.  When this is taken as a percentage in tax the urban areas are likely to generate greater revenue per person then a rural area.

Orange County and San Diego are hardly rural areas. 

It's debateable whether LA generates more tax revenue per inhabitant than the southern counties.  What's not debateable is that LA consumes much more revenue.