'Six Californias' Initiative Fails for 2016 Ballot

[Zorro]

Source: ABC News

A ballot initiative that would have asked voters to split California into six separate states failed to qualify for the ballot in 2016, the secretary of state's office reported Friday.

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper submitted 1.37 million signatures in July in support of the measure, saying the state of 38.3 million people has become ungovernable because it has too many diverse interests for politicians to effectively represent their constituents.

A random sampling of ballot initiative signatures from all 58 counties found that just 66 percent were projected to be valid, and that it would fall more than 500,000 signatures short of the number needed to make the ballot.

Draper sought to split California into six states called Jefferson, North California, Silicon Valley, Central California, West California and South California. The regions would vary greatly in size, demographics and incomes.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/californias-initiative-fails-2016-ballot-25469957

[Diclotican]

1. Zorro

Zorro

Problery the best thing to happened to that idea - I was reading about it some earlier - it sounds like a stupid move for California - and a mess for everyone else who have to learn 6 new US states.... It is difficult enough as it is with 50 states...


Diclotican

[Monk06]

2. Venture Capitalist = someone who gets rich spending other peoples' money. His aim

was to turn Silicon Valley into a separate state to avoid California taxes. He then proceeds to offer a petition with 44% forged signatures. He should be in jail for fraud.

[tomm2thumbs]

3. BINGO!

hope his failure is the final, glaring footnote in his career

[freshwest]

15. Exactly! A pox on him!

[Diclotican]

18. Monk06

Monk06

I know - it could not be any worse when you have to forge most of your signatures.... And yes, he should be in prison for what he did - to falsify signatures is a crime anywhere...

Diclotican

[blkmusclmachine]

22. MUST. LOOK. FORWARD.

[Diclotican]

23. blkmusclmachine

blkmusclmachine

Sometimes you have to get your hand on the criminals of the past - and deal with them - before you can look forward... And I guess Obama know a few things about the past - who would devastate US... It was maybe not one of his finest moment - to say they have to "Look forward" even after the evidences of GWBs crime was shown him.... Maybe he was afraid about how it would engulf his own governance if he was looking into the horrible things the former admin did....

Diclotican

[DRoseDARs]

4. *sad trombone*

http://www.sadtrombone.com/?play=true

[davidpdx]

5. I'm glad it failed to gain enough signatures

If it had made it and passed I would have had to say I was born in California before the corporate take over.

[freshwest]

16. That is what it was... Glad it didn't get going.

[supercats]

6. Fuck This Asshole!

It would have been just another way for him to make more money and screw everybody else over. I hope he gets serious chest pains from his defeat.

[SunSeeker]

7. Draper's the biggest asshole to try to destroy CA since Queen Meg. nt

[SleeplessinSoCal]

8. Thankfully. n/t

[SoapBox]

9. What a stupid idea.

And this jackass...needs his jackass kicked.

[FrodosPet]

11. Exactly. California should be 3 states, not 6!

According to Thom Hartmann in the video below

[mrdmk]

20. Not exactly a good idea either 3 or worse, 6 states. Consider the following:

California is the 8th largest economy in the world, at the same time, leads the nation in environmental laws, it is not perfect, yet proves both can work.

The environment concerns are the following:

Earthquakes
Fires
Droughts
Flooding

Earthquakes happen without warning. At the present moment the state is able to move resources from unaffected areas to stricken areas in matter of days without Federal or International help. Having multiple independent entities deal with an area, say Ventura County would be daunting to impossible. Ventura County (mostly agricultural) would not be able to deal with this on their own.

Fires come and go depending on which way the wind blows and what idiot has a book of matches. Once again, resources can be moved within hours to deal with this matter in saving life and property. Centralized management moves quickly, whereas moving over state lines will take more time.

Droughts, my goodness the Greater Los Angeles area (Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties) is in a Mediterranean Climate, not a desert has wildly believed. The desert is East and North of the Greater Los Angeles area. The desert is used for mostly agricultural, mining, and wind farms. Getting water here to feed the nation will be a problem. Controlling the mining industry will be a problem. Dealing with the poor, might as well give them a death sentence.

Flooding, it has been said that only California can make up for a 8 year drought in one season as experienced in the late 1980's to the early 1990's. Without the centralized management in place to set-up and maintain the infrastructure to store water and avoid washing away populated areas will more of a problem than it is already.

The only reasons to divide California is to 1) Do away with environmental controls, 2) A quick money grab, 3) Do away with the Socialistic (political) structure in this vast state, 4) this needs to be said, 'population control.'

There are a lot of resources and money in the area. Dividing up an area as vast as California would become, 'I got mine, fuck-you!'

[ErikJ]

10. Break up Calif. into 3 states

[quakerboy]

12. The idea had merit, the plan was terrible.

The idea of dividing California is not a terrible one. LA by itself has significantly more people than most states. If California was divided into 5-6 roughly even states, each would still be larger than average. And they are vastly under represented in the senate, and the Electoral college. Dividing it into multiple states would help with these issues.

But the map that draper came up with was some pretty serious RW corporate crap. It made a northern California into state that was drastically red, and drastically under populated, compared to the national average, and another under populated, land locked inner California red state. If you were to divide any state, it should be into roughly equal population sections, regardless of political affiliation.

[Auggie]

13. No one in CA took this seriously

[JI7]

14. fuck him

[on point]

17. Repuke wet dream around popular vote losses dies w/ repuke dead Enders

[Bette Noir]

19. Californians aren't stupid.

It was pretty clear that this was a ploy to create a net gain of 6 Republican Senators.

[dickthegrouch]

21. We need a different Constitutional amendment though

No law should be considered complete enough for any kind of consideration without a clear funding plan, including contingency plans for cost overruns. It is not enough to say "funded from general funds", or "funded from money otherwise used by <despised_program_here>".

There must be an explicit funding source and amount such as:

"funded by a 1% raise in taxes on people earning less than $100,000 year, and a 4% raise in taxes for those earning more than $100,000 year". If this proves insufficient to fund the new proposed law herein described, the overruns to be paid for by the original proponents of the law out of their own pockets, a debt not dischargeable in bankruptcy or death.

(And, since corporations are people (!), most will pay 4% extra in taxes).

No unfunded mandates, ever.