Correction: “…Falls Church, Vienna, Fairfax…”
The Teller and Platt amendments were simply declarations of American policy toward Cuba after the Spanish-American War. From the Library of Congress, Hispanic Division, http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/teller.html.:
The amendments had no more force than any other statute, and they are probably moot today. But even if they were still valid as an expression of the United States’ policy toward Cuba, they could be superseded by a new statute–for example, an act enabling Cuba’s admission to statehood–just like any other Congressional enactment.
I agree that DC couldn’t support statehood by itself; I’ve always been in favor of keeping DC the way it was and passing a Constitutional amendment which would allow them representation in the House, but not the Senate. I think that’s a fair compromise.
Congress would never allow any state to divide into two. It would give that state 4 senators instead of 2. And the Constitution requires the Congress’ approval for this kind of split.
Congress would allow it if the dominant party in the two halves of the states concerned was the majority in Congress.
Polycarp,
Nitpick: Congress retains jurisdiction over Federal land, no matter where it is. The Federal employees who work on those lands may answer to the President, but they’re paid out of funds allocated by the Congress. Those lands are obtained by the Congress as well. But I quibble about a semantic point.
If JoltSucker could have his way with the Congress, I’d add Montgomery and Prince Georges County to the locales you mentioned. I’d redefine DC to be the federal area, from the White House and points south, and constutionally forbid residency in the redefined DC, and the new DC would not be part of the new state.
The rest of the old DC would need a new name, but “Columbia County” would likely be confused with nearby Columbia, MD. So I’d give it a name like “L’Enfant County”, in honor of Pierre L’Enfant, who laid the plan for the original DC. But the real challenge would be to come up with the name for the new state.
If Loudoun’s in, Stafford’s in too. Leesburg always feels a world away from D.C.
I’ve thought about “regional divisions” too. My proposal was something along the lines of:
– Northern New England (Maine, Vt, N.H., Western Mass and Conn, Adirondack N.Y.)
– Southern New England (Eastern Mass and Conn, and Long Island.)
– New York City (NYC proper, Northern N.J., North to West Point.)
– Phillamore (Philly area, Baltimore Area, Delaware, South N.J.)
– Eastern seaboard (rest of upstate N.Y., upstate PA, western Ohio.)
– D.C. (as previously suggested)
– Appalachia (W.Va, western Va, Eastern Ky, TN, West N.C., Southern Ohio.)
– East Deep South (N.C., S.C., Eastern Ga, Northern FL)
– South Florida
– West Deep South (West Ga, Alabama, Mississippi)
– Texas (they’d fight if it were otherwise :))
– Mississippi Valley (La, Arkansas, West Tennessee)
– Rust Belt (West Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, West Illinois, South Wisconsin)
– Southern Midwest (Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa)
– Northern Midwest (n+s Dakota, Minnesota, rest of Wisconsin)
– Arizexico (Arizona, New Mexico, southern Utah)
– Rockies (East Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, south Idaho)
– sipping Sin ‘n’ Coke - Nevada and West Utah
– North Mountains - Montana, North Idaho, East Washington and Oregon.
– Hippieville - West Washington, Oregon, North California
– Southern California
– Alaska
– Hawaii
We’d enter the Union as 13 states, not one. Unless you really wanted to give the Texans fits. 
bradwalt, if a state splits into two and Congress admits the spin-off as a new state, it does NOT have “four” senators. It still has two senators. The new state has its own two. This already happened for Mass./Maine, Virginia/Kentucky (and in an irregular fashion for VA/WVa).
For the record, that vast majority of Northern Californians consider San Francisco to be a Northern California city.
The division, if there were one to be made, would be fought over like you wouldn’t believe.
Northern California would become quite wealthy selling it’s abundant water to Southern California
The future is the return of city states.
A statue of Machiavelli will replace Lincoln. Cities will hold wars and intrigues against other city states. Roving bands of ruthless conquering peoples will sweep upon the cities by driving across thousands of miles on all-terrain vehicles. They will massacre entire villages and cities. These conquering heathens will first come from the Midwest. A hundred years later, another race will descend from the north, pillaging and raping, stealing gold and modern art. Later in history, a mysterious, massive tribe from the south will conquer half of North America and South America. Eventually, all these tribes and races will die out because Hollywood survived and will keep turning out dreck, thus boring them to death and madness.
Good idea, but let’s limit it to the Kamchucka Penninsula. Has oil, timber, tigers (!), narrow strip of land connects it to Asia, so it’s defensible, & Russia is strapped for cash right now.
An apt reason (raised in reference to other states) why there will never be a NY split: Where to make the boundary.
Despite my new (and unfortunate) state of residence (Dirty Jersey), I was raised in upstate NY - Albany county - and also went to school upstate. When I mention that I’m from upstate, NYCer’s say, “what, like, Westchester?” I want to slam them in the junk when I hear this. Westchester, Rockland and counties of their ilk and geographic location are merely suburbs of NYC. I don’t even really consider the Poughkeepsie/Newburgh area upstate, although this is, of course, debatable.
It is very true that upstate is worlds apart from NYC and her suburbs (LI, Westchester/Rockland), but where can you draw the line? I don’t feel that upstate resembles New England as much as another poster (sorry ‘bout forgettin’ your name), rather I feel it resembles more rural/suburban areas of states like NC or VA. This debate on boundary would never be settled, especially considering the mass amounts of $ involved.
I’d like a division though, once I moved back to upstate, because we’d be free of this damned Democrat stranglehold!
I haven’t noticed anyone mentioning the “State of Franklin”, an obscure and vague bit of American Historical trivia from the 1780s.
It was never a state of course, but was called State of Franklin during its few years of existence and basically evaporated.
A proposal to split CA in three pieces has surfaced as well. In this proposal, there would be a middle part containing SF. IIRC, the proposal very conveniently attached affluent Marin county (other end of the Golden Gate Bridge) to the northern part, and somehow left Richmond in the middle part.
Um, there are three main sections to California…
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Norther California, which includes a bit south from Frisco and up (including Sacramento).
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The central valleys, which contain all the farmland
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SoCal, which is basically Los Angeles (San Diego thinks it isn’t, but it is
Using the coastal counties as reference;
A 2-state split would go right between Monterrey and San Luis Obispo/Kern.
A 3-state split would go San Mateo or Santa Cruz as the south part of the North, Monterrey/San Luis Obispo/Kern/Inyo as the central, and Santa Barbara and south as the south.
OR, as was mentioned,
A 3-state split with Marin/Sonoma/Napa being the south of the north so to speak, then the middle and south parts being the same. (Personally, I dislike this one)
It is a very complex issue, because California does not split easily due to the 400-odd miles of farmland smack dab in the “center.” Most people just plain leave out the REAL northern California (everything north of Napa/Sonoma), since there is basically nothing there.
Don’t count on it happening. California is quite content with it’s huge economy and vast power of the electoral votes, and most citizens don’t really care about it. The main concerns are the diversity of statewide interests, which would be easier to manage in smaller states.
It is far more realistic to see the Dakotas merge than anything else, really. There was some talk about that a while back.
Can we go back to talking about New York being nuked now?
The state splits of WV/VA, ME/MA etc occured so long it was when we were adding states. This isn’t the climate and most likely will never be for political reasons. The last time HA and AK were added it was balanced that one state was Republican and one Democratic.
Even if Puerto Rico wanted to become a state congress would certainly veto the idea. They don’t want the extra Senators believed to be Democratic.
Puerto Rico’s tax structure is similar enuff to the Federal Government so even if they don’t pay Fed Taxes they pay similar amounts, so no break there. (There are already states with no income tax at a state level)
DC statehood was once an idea however,now that DC is only larger than Wyoming (and how much longer they way the distric is bleeding population) is anyone guess. Maryland should just reannex it to solve the representation problem. (Canada’s capital is in Ontario). Ours could be in a state.
No large state like CA, TX, NY, FL or IL is going to support making parts of a state, such as Michigan’s UP (another area seriously once considered – population currently 300,000.) with such a small population.
California has over 30 MILLION people. That is one senator for 15 million people (15 million is roughly the size of Fl the 4th biggest state) Currently WY has one senator for less than 240,000 people.
Even in CA San Fernando couldn’t get the OK to leave Los Angeles. Staten Island couldn’t get the OK to leave NYC. Even though both places wanted it.
If you can’t find sucsessful splits on the smallest level how sucsessful could a higher level be?
Does anyone know when the last new county was created???
Actually, no, it could not, at least not without a constitutional amendment. The Constitution (art. I, sec. 8) provides for a capital in an exclusively federal enclave: “such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States,” and over which the federal government shall “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever.”
But, Brian, that provision is permissive, not mandative, and was there because none of the original 13 wanted the national capital to be in any other state but their own, so they made a provision that it could be in land outside a state. It’s not required that it be – if Congress and the President so desired, they could make Omaha the national capital tomorrow, by simply enacting a law designating it as such.
Poor little Rhode Island. Overlooked, as usual.
Wyld Stallyn I would certainly be one of those debating whether the Poughkeepsie/Newburgh area is upstate or not. I used to live there and I would argue that it is at the very limits of NYCs sphere of influence, at best. Relatively few people commute from Poughkeepsie to the City every day. They tend to read local newspapers rather than the Times, Post, or Daily News. Before widespread cable TV I’m not even sure you could get NYC TV stations up there. Even the major AM radio stations don’t come in that well.
I also used to live in Putnam County, which is just north of Westchester, and that certainly didn’t feel connected to NYC in any meaningful way, at least not in the 70s. It was quite the backwater, although we did get NY TV and radio stations.