Voters Could Decide If California Remains One State

We’ve all seen it before right? Someone wants to split the state in 6, and never ends up gathering enough signatures to get it on the ballot. Well, it appears that one guy has actually managed to do just that.

By Admin on April 13, 2018
The California State Capitol (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

We’ve all seen it before right? Someone wants to split the state in 6, and never ends up gathering enough signatures to get it on the ballot. Well, it appears that one guy has actually managed to do just that.

Except, he now wants to change California to 3 states now, instead of 6.

CBS News reports, “California voters may soon be asked to decide whether their state is too big and should broken into three, separate states. Venture capitalist Tim Draper, who pushed for a six-state proposal, now has a three-state proposal called “CAL3,” according to CBS San Francisco.

Draper did not have enough signatures to get his six-state measure on the California ballot in 2016. For this new proposal, he needs 366,000 signatures. On Thursday, he announced that he has more than 600,000 signatures.

“I’m proud to announce we’ve collected more than enough signatures to qualify for the 2018 ballot,” Draper said.

If the proposal passes, the Bay Area, along with counties north of Merced, would be considered as Northern California. Along the coast, from Monterey to Los Angeles, would be California and the counties to the east would be Southern California.

The population of each new state would range from 13.9 million people in Southern California, 13.3 million in Northern California and 12.3 million in California. The three new states would still be among the top ten most populous in the country.

“This would make sure everyone has a government that is responsive and responsible,” Draper said.”

There are several more steps if a ballot measure passes, and that’s where we get into complications. CBS breaks all of that down, and has an infographic showing the proposal on a map here.

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