Tim Draper, a deep pockets Silicon Valley investor, is financing a Six Californias secession ballot proposal. Seceding from California is going mainstream. The California initiative system is broken and easily gamed. A proposal makes it to the ballot if it gets enough signatures. Six Californias will certainly attract lots of volunteers and Draper can also afford to pay signature gatherers. The proposal will make the ballot.
Draper explains in email to TechCrunch.
1. It is about time California was properly represented with Senators in Washington. Now our number of Senators per person will be about average.
2. Competition is good, monopolies are bad. This initiative encourages more competition and less monopolistic power. Like all competitive systems, costs will be lower and service will be better.
3. Each new state can start fresh. From a new crowd sourced state flower to a more relevant constitution.
4. Decisions can be more relevant to the population. The regulations in one new state are not appropriate for another.
5. Individuals can move between states more freely.
California is so large and the state bureaucracy so lethargic that it is indeed approaching ungovernable. However Draper’s explanation seems more of the same tedious Silicon Valley techno-utopianism, which generally translates into extreme libertarianism with as few rules or laws as possible and everything run by zillionaire geeks.
Imagine the water wars if six states were suddenly fighting for the same water. Ditto for electricity. By a bizarre coincidence, the new state of Silicon Valley would include the Sacramento Delta, where most of the water for the Central Valley and southern California comes from.
Related: A recent poll shows 25% of Californians support counties wanting to secede. Two northern California counties have already voted in favor of secession and neighboring counties are exploring the idea.
Not gonna happen.
I don’gt think it’ll happen either. Just divvying up the water and power would keep lawyers going for a decade.