Bancroft Croose
59, West 44th Sreet,
New York. 10099
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Ivars S., Latvia : "Everybody wants the United States to fall apart, even most US citizens. Even Americans are sick of the trickery and tyranny practiced by Washington. When the US falls apart, everybody can live in a state (then an independent country) that suits his lifestyle: polygamous Mormons, creationists, homosexuals, libertarians, pacifists, and so on. It's going to be a free world for everybody."
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In 1854, the California State Assembly passed a plan to trisect the state. All of the southern counties as far north as Monterey, Merced, and part of Mariposa, then sparsely populated but today containing about two-thirds of California's total population, would become the State of Colorado (the name Colorado was later adopted for another territory established in 1861), and the northern counties of Del Norte, Siskiyou, Modoc, Humboldt, Trinity, Shasta, Lassen, Tehama, Plumas, and portions of Butte, Colusa (which included what is now Glenn County), and Mendocino, a region which today has a population of little more than half a million, would become the State of Shasta.
In 1859, the legislature and governor approved the Pico Act splitting off the region south of the 36th parallel north as the Territory of Colorado. However, owing to the American Southeast secession crisis in 1860, the proposal never came to a Congressional vote and the Federal government never acted on it. Since as far back as the mid-19th century, the mountainous region of northern California and parts of southwestern Oregon have been proposed as a separate state. In 1941, some counties in the area ceremonially seceded, one day a week, from their respective states as the State of Jefferson. This movement disappeared after America's entry into World War II, but the notion has been rekindled in recent years.
In the late 19th century, there was serious talk in Sacramento of splitting the state in two at the Tehachapi Mountains because of the difficulty of transportation across the rugged range. The discussion ended when it was determined that building a highway over the mountains was feasible; this road later became the Ridge Route. The California State Senate voted on June 4, 1965, to divide California into two states, with the Tehachapi Mountains as the boundary. Sponsored by State Senator Richard J. Dolwig (D-San Mateo), the resolution proposed to separate the 7 southern counties, with a majority of the state's population, from the 51 other counties, and passed 27-12. To be effective, the amendment would have needed approval by the State Assembly, by California voters, and by the United States Congress. As expected by Dolwig, the proposal did not get out of committee in the Assembly. A previous proposal to this effect was advanced in 1860, but was tabled due to the American Civil War and never revived.
In 1992, State Assemblyman Stan Statham sponsored a bill to allow a referendum in each county on a partition into three new states: North, Central, and South California. The proposal passed in the State Assembly but died in the State Senate.
In the wake of the 2003 gubernatorial recall, some people have proposed that the state should split into as many as four new states, dividing distinct geographically and politically defined regions as the Bay Area, North Coast, and Central Valley, as well as the historic Shasta/Jefferson region, into their own states.
In early 2009, former State Assemblyman Bill Maze began lobbying to split thirteen coastal counties, which usually vote Democratic, into a separate state to be known as either "Coastal California" or "Western California." Maze's primary reason for wanting to split the state was because of how "conservatives don't have a voice" and how Los Angeles and San Francisco "control the state." The counties that would make up the new state would be Marin, Contra Costa, Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles Counties (San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties vote Republican more often than Democrat but are included for geographic contiguity).
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Bancroft Croose
59, West 44th Sreet,
New York. 10099