Proposal to split California into six states, Silicon Valley one of them | Hacker News Reader

Proposal to split California into six states, Silicon Valley one of them

washingtonpost.com

13 pointsK-Wall16 comments

Let me guess: it's another example of GOP wishful-thinking, where it just happens to gerrymander away a lot of CA's electoral votes?

/me checks article and looks at map

Yep. The only section that would reliably vote against the GOP would be "silicon valley" due to it being mostly urban areas. The Sacramento and urban LA areas are questionable.

While (current) CA as been a reliable block of electoral votes votes for some time, it there the state has a lot more "rural voters" than most people expect.

Precinct heat map for 2008 Obama/McCain:

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/4362/statewidevote.gif

The same map skewed so area is proportional to #votes cast. The giant blue area on the left is roughly the "silicon valley" subdivision, and LA 3 of the eastern subdivisions are mostly the lighter-blue/lighter-read areas.

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/3248/statewidevoteadjustedb...

It's not like it would happen anyway. Does LA really want to start paying us in the norther half of the state for all the water we would then be "exporting"? Not going to happen.

edit: fixed URL

How is that skewed, second map generated?

We can't even get the District of Columbia recognized as a state so people who live there can have congressional representation. And this guy thinks they're gonna make SIX NEW states just for shits and giggles?

You think there is a problem that DC is underrepresented in the federal government?

It actually is a problem. The residents of DC don't have fair representation. Politicians and the like are actually a very small portion of the population in DC.

If DC had 2 senators they would have ridiculously high representation per person.

OK, but they only have one representative in the House. Nonvoting, IIRC.

They are under-represented because that representative is non-voting, but they do have fewer residents per member of congress than California.

No. It would have the same representation as Vermont and Wyoming, both states that have smaller populations and larger land masses.

You are right that Vermont and Wyoming are even more ridiculously over represented than DC would be.

I may be biased as a Californian, but I don't see why a person from Wyoming should have 25% more representation in the House and 6500% more representation in the Senate.

Two reasons:

One, band-sawing a senator into a fraction is probably bad for their health.

Two, representatives exist so that the people can hold some say over how they are governed. Right now the people in the district have no say over how they are governed, as if they lived under a kind of monarchy.

There are probably solutions to the percentage-of-representation issue you describe, like increasing the number of delegates to even out the numbers.

I agree that DC is underrepresented because they have only 1 non-voting member of the house. If that member was voting they would have similar representation per capita to California.

The point I made in my post above is that people in small states have dramatically higher representation than people in large states. This is why it is in California's best interest to split up and why there is not chance it will be allowed to.

The District itself is not "underrepresented", because the whole point of elected officials is to represent people, not arbitrary collections of land. There are more people living in DC than in Wyoming and Vermont, in a much smaller space.

Unlike residents of U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico or Guam, which also have non-voting delegates, D.C. residents are subject to all U.S. federal taxes. In the financial year 2012, D.C. residents and businesses paid $20.7 billion in federal taxes; more than the taxes collected from 19 states and the highest federal taxes per capita.

So in addition to paying the federal tax in the nation, the people who live there are not allowed to determine how those funds are allocated or used. Some other fun restrictions on the District include the President alone assigns the judges for the local courts. It also takes an act of congress to do things like change the city's budget. Basically, if the district wanted to change how its trash was collected, it has to be approved by Congress.

The District did not even have an elected city government until the passage by Congress of the Home Rule Act of 1973. Besides lacking representation in Congress, the city is also deprived of the ability to have ultimate authority over how to spend the money it collects. Every law passed by the DC Council and signed by the mayor needs congressional approval. That includes the budget, even though DC residents and businesses provide a majority of the funds. This means that the Congress can modify DC’s budget any way it wants, even the portion of DC’s budget supported with the city’s own tax dollars.

So, no, the people who live in the District are not underrepresented in the federal government that determines how their local government functions. They are simply not represented at all. But thank you for the snark.

I wouldn't say that a non-voting member of the house is quite the same as "not represented at all"

This will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever happen. Jefferson has been a proposed state (southern Oregon + northern California) for decades. That, combined with the process of creating a state, annexing the correct territory, etc. It's not going to happen. Ever.

While we're at it why don't we unite North and South Dakota to form one universal "Dakota"? What about the glorious state of "Carolina"? It's very irritating that the conversation always seems to be about California. California shouldn't be divided just because different regions offer different things.

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