Free Republic

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper has come up with a scheme to split California into three states, and he’s collected twice as many signatures as he needs to get the proposition on the ballot in November. Some 600,000 Californians have signed his petition, which would allow a vote on whether to split the state into North California, South California and California.Personally, I would have named the third part Coastal California. Here’s what Draper has in mind:He has done one thing correctly. He has roughly equalized population among the three regions in his proposal. The effect, however, would be...

Tim Draper is a rich man, but he understands he doesn't know it all.  His first attempt to divide California into six states made little sense.  So he went out and got some people who are experts on the subject.  The result, Cal 3, is a political masterpiece.  This could work. When California was admitted to the Union in 1850, it had only 92,000 people, most of them scrambling for gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.  That's why California's county lines are so screwy.  Los Angeles County now has 10,000,000 people.  Alpine County has 1,000. Cal 3 divides the state along lines that make...