# Can US states combine?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 29, 2010, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420 "2010-07-29T04:18:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/21 "2010-07-29T15:46:56Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> When I took US history in HS we learned that Congress had preapproved at the time TX joined the union, the possibility of it splitting into as many as five states. Imagine ten senators from Texas!
Texas has already been split into several states. Take a look at the territory of Texas claimed at independence, and the current boundaries of Texas. [File:Wpdms republic of texas.svg - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wpdms_republic_of_texas.svg).
Parts of what was once claimed by Texas are now parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Kansas. Of course, at the time the far interior territory of “Texas” was controlled by various Indian groups.
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/22 "2010-07-29T15:51:34Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> > [@pravnik](#):
> >
> > I have long advocated the formation and combination of Arkansaskansas, Vageorginia, and Nevawashaho.
>
> For any reason besides the names spill trippingly off the tongue?
>
> 🙂
That, and fewer capitals to memorize.
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### Author:  [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/23 "2010-07-29T16:03:58Z")
In a somewhat related question, where can I find the legal descriptions of the exact boundaries of the states? I’ve searched in vain for this. Something like commencing at latitude x, longitude y, thence 50 miles due west, thence 20 miles due north… etc.
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### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/24 "2010-07-29T16:06:12Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> > [@zoid](#):
> >
> > Could states agree to develop common tax laws and share revenue, develop a common set of state laws, and agree to count the populations as a whole for purposes of electoral college voting? Hence becoming a sort of defacto single state?
>
> Doubtful. Whatever they agreed to on a state level, the two entities would remain separate in the eyes of Congress (and the federal judiciary).
>
> And there is no telling what the representation would be. Because of the way population is divided after a census, whether you round remainders up or down or whichway will determine how many House seats a state gets. Combining populations would change that entirely. See [Methods of Apportionment](http://www.census.gov/history/www/census_then_now/apportionment/methods_of_apportionment.html).
>
> And any single entity would lose two Senate seats, which is the deal breaker.
I guess what I’m sugesting is that they remain seperate in the eyes of Congress so as not to lose any seats, but just agree to act internally as a single entity, like sharing revenue and having a single set of laws implemented in both states.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/25 "2010-07-29T16:19:52Z")
> [@zoid](#):
>
> > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
> >
> > > [@zoid](#):
> > >
> > > Could states agree to develop common tax laws and share revenue, develop a common set of state laws, and agree to count the populations as a whole for purposes of electoral college voting? Hence becoming a sort of defacto single state?
> >
> > I guess what I’m sugesting is that they remain seperate in the eyes of Congress so as not to lose any seats, but just agree to act internally as a single entity, like sharing revenue and having a single set of laws implemented in both states.
This is opposite to what you asked earlier. But I don’t see why two states couldn’t make their constitutions and laws coincide. The exact process would depend on the individual states, and might involve the legislature, a constitutional convention in one or both states, and a referendum in one or both states. The disruption would be beyond belief and a lawyer’s nightmare/opportunity of a lifetime. But I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be legal as long as they kept a separate federal identity.
As soon as you talk about counting “the populations as a whole for purposes of electoral college voting,” it fails.
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### Author:  [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/26 "2010-07-29T16:47:27Z")
People in southern Illinois often say they’d like to split the state at I80, and I think people in Chicago wouldn’t mind that, either! As a former Chicago-area person now living in southern Illinois, I can see both points of view.
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### Author:  [@NetTrekker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NetTrekker)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/27 "2010-07-29T17:02:21Z")
We probably don’t need 4 senators from the Dakotas nor the Carolinas nor VA/WVA. Also, RI should be merged with someone since it’s so little. Then we could create a couple more states, maybe take in Hispaniola and/or Cuba.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/28 "2010-07-29T17:03:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> As soon as you talk about counting “the populations as a whole for purposes of electoral college voting,” it fails.
I think what he means is that (say) Pennsylvania would allocate their electors according to the combined popular vote of Pennsylvania and New York, and that New York would do likewise. So far as I can tell, there’s no Constitutional problem with that: States are free to choose to allocate their electors however they like, so long as it’s (vaguely so defined) republican (note the lower-case r). It doesn’t sound all that different, in principle, from the [National Popular Vote Interstate Compact](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact), which has been discussed for a while.
And on a small scale, some states have already made moves in the direction **zoid** is talking about. For instance, most state-run colleges will charge one tuition level for residents of the state, and another, higher, level for non-residents. But there are many cases where adjacent states have reciprocity agreements, that residents of state A can pay in-state tuition at B State University, and vice-versa.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/29 "2010-07-29T17:04:28Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> As soon as you talk about counting “the populations as a whole for purposes of electoral college voting,” it fails.
The workaround for this is that states are free to allocate their electoral college votes in any way they please, it’s up to the state legislature. It just so happens that every state allocates electoral college votes by holding an election. But they could change the law so that the state legislature choses the electors, as was done in the past. So what you do is you change the law to say that the two state legislatures choose the electors, but they should chose electors based on the combined popular vote in both state A and state B.
If there’s only one state legislature representing both states then I give up.
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### Author:  [@rayman5321](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayman5321)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/30 "2010-07-29T17:10:41Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#):
>
> > [@UDS](#):
> >
> > There’s nothing to say that a state has to be contiguous. Massachussets used to be non-contiguous, with a northern part and a southern part separated by New Hampshire, until the northern part was hived off in 1820 as the state of Maine.
>
> Michigan still is, the Upper Peninsula is only connected by a bridge to the real world to the south. 😉
The Mackinac bridge was built so the Trolls could get to heaven. 😉
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/31 "2010-07-29T17:20:28Z")
I know there are a number of movements in America that want to split states up. But are there any movements out there calling for states to be joined together?
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/32 "2010-07-29T17:25:02Z")
Losing seats and the Electoral College voting are two different concepts, so we need to hear from Zoid which was meant. But as pointed out, there is no need for shenanigans about combined laws to achieve coordinated electoral voting.
On those rare occasions when the race is thrown into the House and each state votes as a bloc, it’s harder to see how this would work.
Of course, I didn’t understand what the purpose of this proposal was in the first place. Hypothetical arguments about legality are fun, but there are so many real world consequences to any change that purpose should be taken into account at some point.
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### Author:  [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/33 "2010-07-29T17:43:01Z")
There is some separatist feeling in Northern CA - mostly because the snobs up there don’t want to be associated with those conservatives in the Central Valley and us shallow movie industry scum in the South - but it ain’t gon’ happen. Mostly because we won’t let them - we need the water rights.
So much of CA history is driven by water rights…
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### Author:  [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/34 "2010-07-29T17:59:14Z")
The issue with two states simply agreeing amongst themselves to at as a single state is this – they’d presumably have to maintain two legislatures and governors (there are due process restrictions on state legislative allocation), so each (original) state couldn’t trust that the other wouldn’t break the compact at an opportune moment.
–Cliffy
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### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/35 "2010-07-29T18:01:35Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
> >
> > As soon as you talk about counting “the populations as a whole for purposes of electoral college voting,” it fails.
>
> The workaround for this is that states are free to allocate their electoral college votes in any way they please, it’s up to the state legislature. It just so happens that every state allocates electoral college votes by holding an election. But they could change the law so that the state legislature choses the electors, as was done in the past. So what you do is you change the law to say that the two state legislatures choose the electors, but they should chose electors based on the combined popular vote in both state A and state B.
>
> If there’s only one state legislature representing both states then I give up.
Sorry for being unclear, this is what I meant.
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### Author:  [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/36 "2010-07-29T18:28:25Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> The formation of WV was problematic to say the least. As described, the legislators from VA who remained loyal, asked congress for approval and got it. After the war, the newly constituted state of VA had to agree in order to rejoin the union. They also had to accept the 13-15th amendments. What would have happened had they refused? Presumably remained under military occupation.
As I tell people, such issues were settled in the famous case of Lee v. Grant (1865).
Basically, West Virginia was a union state and the people in West Virginia would not have accepted forced repatriation into Virginia. Virginia simply has to accept the facts on the ground at that time. This was never covered in the Constitution, but come to think of it, neither was the Civil War.
> [@](#):
>
> When I took US history in HS we learned that Congress had preapproved at the time TX joined the union, the possibility of it splitting into as many as five states. Imagine ten senators from Texas!
The treaty (which was never ratified) gave Texas the right to split itself into five states. I don’t know if this provision was carried over to the joint resolution. However, there was never a pre-approval of the deal. Texas (like any other state) could split itself up into a hundred pieces, but Congress would still have to approve it.
Remember Congress refused to approve the treaty because Texas was a slave state, and the North didn’t want to admit another slave state into the Union. Only with the promise that Iowa would be admitted as a free state was Texas approved by joint resolution. (Iowa’s admission to the Union was held up due to border issues with Indian tribes).
If it was so difficult to admit a single Texas in as a state due to political reasons, can you imagine if Texas could simply split into four more states, and the U.S. would be stuck with five Texases instead of just the one?
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/37 "2010-07-29T18:49:50Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> …When I took US history in HS we learned that Congress had preapproved at the time TX joined the union, the possibility of it splitting into as many as five states. Imagine ten senators from Texas!
It’s true, but under Art. IV, Congress and the Texas legislature would still have to OK the deal: [Can Texas Divide Itself into Five Separate States? | Snopes.com](http://www.snopes.com/history/american/texas.asp). Extremely unlikely to ever happen, and of course, only two of the senators would then be “from Texas.”
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/38 "2010-07-29T20:05:33Z")
Reminds me of a political cartoon my mom once told me about, from 1959: Alaska is saying to an obviously-disappointed Texas “Now don’t make too big a fuss, or I’ll split in half, and then you’ll only be the _third_-biggest state.”.
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### Author:  [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/39 "2010-07-29T20:17:45Z")
I recall hearing, within the past ten years, about the Dakotas considering a merger “to save on administrative costs.”
Anyone know anything about that? Was it not really serious?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-us-states-combine/548420/40 "2010-07-29T20:46:13Z")
I’m pretty sure that was an Onion article.
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