The California Split

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Maps altered, the American flag’s design changed and California ceases to be the third largest state in the United States of America. This would be caused not by a dramatic earthquake or natural disaster; instead by a proposition from Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Timothy Draper, who believes California is too large as a political body. In December of 2013 Draper submitted an initiative measure to the state proposing California be broken into six separate states that more accurately represent the politics and values of each area. To summarize part of Draper’s government initiative, America’s most populated state, California, has a population almost six times more than population median of the other states. But a large amount of the population is in urban and coastal areas. California has extremely large and vastly different economies, of course a result of that diversity is that the representation in politics has made the state almost ungovernable (Draper). Draper plans on carving California into the following states: Jefferson which will be at the northernmost edge of California and take some of Oregon with it, North California will stretch from Tahoe to Napa, Silicon Valley will encompass San Francisco and cities around it, Central California will be the only state without coastline, West California will be Los Angeles, and Southern California will be the southern tip and San Diego. With all these different states the plan is for each state to be very different and to allow people to choose the state they like the politics of. However, encouraging it might seem to have a government more accurately tailored to one’s way of life; it would not change the fact that this split would be an astronomically expensive decision and cou...

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...tatistics, governments, and the way people spoke in everyday life. It would be a significant change for America, the largest since Hawaii joined the United States in 1959.
Overall the Six Californias proposition is an interesting idea to think about and ponder and it is very real, there are people with petitions standing outside of colleges and grocery stores trying to get signatures so that the split will be on the ballot in 2018. People crave change and excitement and this would make history. However after examining the facts, it is not beneficial to Californians or the state, but instead it benefits the affluent in the state. One has to wonder if Tim Draper is really doing this for the good of the people or if he is only thinking about his goal of living in the richest state in the United States and having the glory of having been the one to kill the golden bear.

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