Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Ex-Valley lawmaker wants to split Calif. - Local - fresnobee.com

Ex-Valley lawmaker wants to split Calif. - Local - fresnobee.com: "'Citizens of our once 'Golden State' are frustrated and desperately concerned about the imposition of burdensome regulations, taxation, fees, fees and more fees, and bureaucratic intrusion into our daily lives and businesses,' declares downsizeca.org, the movement's Web site.

Under Maze's plan, 13 coastal counties from Los Angeles to Marin would split from the remaining 45 counties, which the Web site calls 'the new revitalized California.'"

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I see why people living inland would want to do this, but it won't be easy. Here is Article IV, Sec. 3, of the US Constitution:

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

So, the California legislature and Congress both have to approve this, and given that Democrats rule the state legislature and Congress, why should they let the California breadbasket go its own way?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now wait a minute.
If California is split, then it would not be a new state formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state.
Moreover, the resulting entities would not have been formed by the junction of two more more states.

The resulting entities will not have been formed by the junction of parts of States either. Each resulting state will have been formed from the parts of a single former state, not states.

So there is no consent required since a single state is involved. If you wanted to mix and match parts of different states, then the result might be different.

Evan McKenzie said...

Any new state made out of part of California would be a new state formed within the jurisdiction of another state, that other state being California.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps this would be a Supreme Court type of issue. The result is not a state within a state but rather two adjacent states. At no time would you ever have a "state within a state" which is what is prohibited.

Is this kind of like a prohibition against further subdivision in an HOA? ;)