I have lived in California nearly my whole life and for as long as I have been self-aware there has been talk of dividing California up into at least two states – Northern and Southern California (s).  Despite the sterotype of California being a completely ultra liberal La La Land, most of the state outside of the Southern California and the Coastal population centers is very traditional and in some cases ultra conservative.  This causes feelings of disenfranchisement among a significant plurality of the population and a sense that they are force fed policies they do not like by voters who may as well be on a different planet.  This political polarization is usually what gives rise to talk of secession, separation, division, outright warfare, etc.  The separation idea recently gained traction again when venture capitalist Tim Draper filed a petition with the Secretary of State to place an initiative on the ballot to divide California into six states, known as the Six Californias Initiative.  The petition was accepted by the Secretary of State and the next step was to collect approximately 800,000 petition signatures to get the proposition placed on the ballot.  According to this report in Time, the signatures have been gathered.  Now the secretary of State must verify the signatures’ validity – and then place the initiative on the ballot for the November 2016 election.

 

six-calis

I would be in North California

 

Is this a good idea?  I’m not sure.  The proposed division would place me in North California.  Also in North California would be Point Reyes National Seashore on the coast and Lake Tahoe in the Sierras.  So far, so good.  However, politically North California would still be a blue state, along with South and West California and Silicon Valley.  Central California and Jefferson (Jefferson? yes, Jefferson) would be red.  Hmmm.  Dunno bout that.

If I had to guess I would say that the proposition makes it onto the ballot, but is turned back in the election.  I can imagine that the Democratic Machine will go to full power to knock this down if only to keep the Republicans left in this state under their thumb.  And very possibly…in my imaginary opinion… there will be a “tribute” system set up in the counties where this passes a la The Hunger Games by which they will be required to send their young Republicans to the Capitol where they will fight each other in death matches for the amusement of our Democrat Overlords.  Hey…it’s California.  Anything can happen.

Cross Posted at Men Out of Work Blog