Borders

Currently, the mob of Californians are rather fed up with each other, and there's a movement to divide the state. A billionaire in Silicon valley wants to divide California into six states.

He's separated Marin Country from the state with San Francisco, where Marin County people work. They rarely go north for anything. They've connected Marin County and Sonoma County to this one and Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, which only makes sense if you join them based on the presence of hippies and vacation spots. He's joined the Central Valley through the Sierras over to the desert side of 395. There's other big flaws to this map. It is silly how badly it joins unlike people together. If ever there was a way to fail at dividing the state to like interests, this is it. My map makes more sense.

I worked with county lines, interests, watersheds, similar plants and occupations. But most folks would say it is too much. The sane option is to divide it into three parts, with LA and San Diego as Southern California, Bakersfield north to San Francisco and possibly Sacramento as Central California, and apparently Yuba City/Marysville (they are divided by a river but that's really all) north for Northern California. This would be a fair and equitable division of the state, really.

Note that bordering counties should reserve the right to vote to join a the neighboring state, provided that the borders are continuous. We can't do this checkerboard, after all. And knowing that Placer County has already voted to join Jefferson state while Nevada County HASN'T, makes this complicated. Inyo County will almost certainly vote to join Central to cut off water supplies to LA and restore their local farming with the water, as well as stop all the deaths from silt inhalation down at Owens Lake caused by LA watering their driveways with that same water.

That dust kills people. If the lake had water in it, the problem would go away. And migratory birds would get their sanctuary back, which they are required to have, by law. A law which isn't being enforced because there are 12 million voters, only some of them legal, who are happier killing birds and the people near the lake bed so they can have clean cars and green lawns in LA. See why I think the worst of people? It is because they ARE the worst.

I think that California is going to divide, finally. Maybe not the backer's map, but perhaps the 3-part division I've put above. There are too many reasons to divide, and too few to stay together. There are, however, rather important legal consequences that aren't discussed but should be.

1. All new states assume some debt from the old state. Including pensions, municipal bonds, other bonds, and prior debts. The division of debt probably won't be fair. Expect bad blood and unfair trade afterwards.
2. All states are required to maintain interstate commerce laws, including free travel on the Interstate Highway System, which they must maintain. Toll roads on the interstates will probably result in Jefferson, because they don't have the tax base to pay for I-5 themselves.
3. New states will almost certainly demand to renegotiate water rights, since water is mostly in the NORTH, but has been flowing South at Northern Expense (taxes and pumping costs). Wars have been fought over water rights.
4. Once they are separate states, they will need separate social services, and not all of those are affordable for each new state. Some aren't even relevant, and all will use the opportunity to cut them.
5. Land seizure is likely, both of BLM public lands for sale for quick cash, and new building standards to suit the locals. Insurance companies will struggle to adapt, so fees will go all over the place.
6. New states will offer incentives to businesses to relocate or stay there not previously available with the prior central govt of California. With smaller govt, more personal favoritism will be possible, for the right fiduciary incentive. Bribery goes all the way down to the bottom.
7. No central govt means prisoner transfers, as prisons are one of the more expensive social services. Unpopular prisoners may find their death row emptying through the graveyard just to cut costs, since new states have little incentive to care about propriety for prisoners legal rights, particularly when there's new constitutions being put together by the 3 new govts. Excellent time for the firing squads, lethal injection, electric chair, and gas chamber. Clean slate empties prisons without burdening the public with trained convicts preying on them in already troubling times. The low end criminals get transferred back to their state of origin from the prison they were placed in, so a Socal crook goes from central to socal. He is there problem. Some will escape. Many will be killed. Few will be released.
8. Oil companies will favor the division, as they don't have to deal with one monolithic govt and can bribe their way into Central California special rights for water access and fracking licenses for the Monterey Formation oil. Oil money paying for oil access will likely make this division happen that much quicker. They want the oil. It is worth trillions. There is a Saudi Arabia worth of oil under there. That is A LOT OF OIL. That is civilization saving quantities, at the expense of agriculture and civil rights in California. Expect totalitarian violence to keep us out of the way of that project. This is HUGELY IMPORTANT to the entire division, to the politics. We are easier to control when we're divided.
   
9. Long term, California remains about its water supply. Lack of repair to the levee system means the rivers will break loose in flood, eventually, temporarily flooding and "destroying" farm land. This is temporary, but temporary could be 20 years or more. My time-scale is centuries.
10. Jefferson state wants to divide from California because their only real industries are in agriculture and controlling the water supply. And while there's common agriculture, the one with money is pot. Jefferson state wants fully legalized and public pot, to be grown with minimal risk, and sold openly like in Colorado and Washington state. Since Gov. Moonbeam has said "Not only no, but hell no." they want a new state where it is legal. The problem with this is once there's more pot than users, the price falls. Eventually the price is so low that there's no money in growing it, not really. And then what? Well, switch crops to Opium, of course. And suddenly Jefferson is growing opium and dealing with Opium violence and slavery, same as Kashmir and SE Asia, and that's a place we don't want to go, but will reach anyway because Pot IS a gateway drug. Same as alcohol and tobacco and coffee and potato chips and candy. I don't think this can be stopped, and I expect to hear about opium poppies being found at the local pot-growers this fall. After all, pot prices are falling. And people gotta eat.
11. The price of oil refining is high because California won't allow new refineries to be built without doing lots of environmental impact reports, written by communists looking for bribes, and approved by more communists looking for bribes, then spun in the media by yet more communists looking for bribes, and objected to by fake environmental groups looking for bribes. See the common thread? So they don't build new refineries. And our gasoline costs more. Tar in roads is a byproduct of oil refining. The high-sulfur tar used to be a waste product and cheap, so making roads with it was a useful outcome. Now, we refine tar into gasoline for big profits, and tar for roads is expensive, not cheap. A divided California, shipping tar oil from fracking the Monterey Formation to China for hard currency, won't be paving roads they don't have to, which means we're going to end up with a lot of gravel and dirt roads. I don't think this can be avoided.
12. There is an El Nino in the Pacific this year. This affects weather worldwide, but El Nino typically causes really heavy flooding in California. El Nino often comes after years of drought, like we've been having. When the floods come this fall, I expect there to be some excitement, lots of landslides, and probably levees breaking, dams overfilling into the spillways, roads washing out, and perhaps really heavy snows in the Sierras. These expenses and disasters will impact how voters respond in November.

As you can see, dividing California has many unintended consequences. And there are factions with MONEY who see real advantage to pushing this forward, perhaps to the detriment of those told it will help them, but will probably harm as much or more. That's the nature of politics. It's the wolves voting with the lamb what to eat for lunch.