Do we need more, smaller states?

Sitting here in Delaware with our never ending de-regulated power, our flawless electoral system (the state is 100% new electronic ballot boxes), and our consistant gov’t surplus (we call it our “rainy day fund”) I hafta wonder if we all might be better off in small states.

50 might be a nice round number, but dividing up some of the larger states may be the ticket. I even heard that some groups in Cali have toyed with the idea. Here are some reasons I think small states are better:

I hafta think that the overall effect would be state legislatures that are more in tune with their constituents and the goals of the state as a whole (you can’t tell me SoCal and NoCal have similar agendas). And solutions to problems that are present can be better directed by smaller, more focused state leg’s.

I don’t wanna get into a “states rights” discussion, but what do you see as the advantages/disadvantages of small/large states?

Hummm… Intriging concept. Consider the effect on presidential elections if every state were about the same size.

Unfortunately the easiest way to divide most states into two divergent constituencies would be urban vs. suburban. And that probably wouldn’t work at all.

Urban vs Rural would be a populous way of dividing the country, I agree. But why not? Do you think NYC has the same set of agendas as Poughkeepsie? Why should they both have the same representation in the federal government? But what if we just made arbitrary geographical cuts (NoCal vs SoCal) like we did when we were carving up the country to begin with?

The urban populations would still have tremondous sway, but wouldn’t it be better if our state gov’t was more accountable to its people?

The Big problem with this is that, while the number of Representatives would remain about the same, there would be a lot more Senators, (and electoral votes) and therefore all hell would break loose trying to figure out where to break up the states. The Democrats would want NYC plus as much of upstate and Long Island as it could get while still retaining a Dem majority, and the Republicans would want everything except Manhattan and The Bronx. Instead, I always thought it would be better to make Counties more autonomous, and maybe give County governments more regulatory power.

I’ve occasionally wondered whether California should break up into 2 or 3 states or secede. The pot of money that Sacramento controls is large enough to attract a broad phalanx of lobbyists, but without the detailed media scrutiny that comes at the federal level.

A website (IMO) advocating the establishment of the State of Jefferson, in N CA and S OR, is at http://www.jeffersonstate.com/. Actually, it’s more of an historical look at the idea: their motto is, " success, not secession. For now." I couldn’t find any other sites advocating a California split-up.

Or you could do as it’s been suggested for here in Washington State: East of the Cascade mountains it’s very conservative, dry climate, mostly agricultural. West of the Cascades it’s much more liberal, wetter climate, and mostly technological in terms of jobs. Suggestion has been made to split the state in two: Western Half to remain “Washington” with state capitol in Olympia, Eastern Half to be named “Lincoln” with state capitol in either Spokane, Yakima or Walla Walla areas. Actually, I agree with this suggestion: Too often the liberals here in Seattle vote on an initiative, etc. and it gets voted down throughout the rest of the state (which is why our bus system has gotten worse – thanks to I-695 and cutting the funding!) That measure failed overwhelmingly in King County and surrounding areas, where bus service is a MUST, but the rest of the state passed it, only seeing that their vehicle registration fees would drop dramatically (without thinking what that might mean to the rest of us!)

Enough. I’m a wetsider and will always be one, even though I was born a drysider.

It is a good idea in some cases, with California and Florida coming to mind especially. However, there isn’t really a precedent for the process, so it isn’t even clear how anyone would go about trying to get such a change.

It would take overwhelming support to actually split California, and it clearly wouldn’t be a bipartisan effort. Consider that if California was divided and both new Senators were Democrats, that would swing the balance of power in the Senate away from the GOP.

West Virginia

I’m not sure I have an opinion on this, but I do remember hearing about a movement to separate Long Island from New York state. Has anyone heard of this? Or is it just a myth?

I would be in favor of breaking California into 2 states. But first, we must see if the San Fernando Valley can break away from Los Angeles.

I’m all for redrawing state lines. Those yahoos on the State of Jefferson site offend me philosophically, but they’re on to something. I’ve thought about redrawing state lines quite a bit, and here are some ideas I’ve come up with.

New York City and Long Island—Anyone who’s ever been to upstate and downstate New York must see that there’s no logical reason for these two regions to be attached. Break 'em up, and maybe call the part south of Duchess County the state of New York, and the part to the north the state of Adirondak.

Pennsylvania—My native state never made much sense to me, geographically. The eastern part should remain Pennsylvania and Delaware should be attached to it. The central part should be handed to West Virginia, while the western part (where I’m from) should be attached to Ohio. I guess it would also make sense to give Delaware back to Maryland; I don’t know.

Texas—It’s just too damned big! I heard somewhere that Texas is the only state with a constitution that permits it to break up into as many as five different states, but I’m not sure. Can anyone verify this? Also, I remember reading about a Texas Panhandle secession movement that emerged sometime in the nineteenth century. The proposed state would have been called, as it happens, Jefferson.

California—We’ve all heard about Californians’ breakup wishes. I’ve heard plans to break the state into two parts, and some into three (but this board is the first place I’ve ever heard of the State of Jefferson movement.) Hell, why not break it up? Call southern California California while northern California becomes Sequoia, according to a proposition I once heard of. I don’t like the State of Jefferson proposal; it picks too many nits.

Oregon and Washington—Keep these two states, but as someone else suggested on this thread: cut 'em in half. Only instead of making four states, make three, with eastern Washington and eastern Oregon turned into one whole state. Lincoln might work as a name, or maybe Cascade or Willamette. I like Cascade better, but heck, the locals can put it to a vote, if they want. I’m not too fussy. (Of course, it would also make sense to attach eastern Oregon and Washington to Idaho; they’re all sort of the same concept.)

North Dakota and South Dakota—Reättach 'em. Who are we kidding?

The problem with proposals to break up states is that the politics might not always be the same. Opinions will always change over time. 50 years from now, two parts of a state that are politically opposed could be exactly the same, or could flip-flop.

That aside, there’s been a movement in the Upper Peninsula of my state, guess which one, to break off and form the state of Superior. Except for the highly egotistical name, it’s not that bad an idea. The differences between the upper and lower peninsulas are more than just political. We have different origins, totally different terrain and resources and the UP does get shafted sometimes in terms of representation (Probably because our State Senate is based on population, not land area).

Let the lower peninsula have its cars and cherries. Let the UP have its lumber and iron. And let’s hope we don’t go to war over the tourist mecca that is Mackinaw Island. :slight_smile:

Oh yeah, and make California look like pre-1870 Germany. There’s just too much money, too many resources and too many people for one state to effectively handle.

“New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

So if Congress and the CA Legislature were willing to approve the division of CA into multiple states, it would be a done deal. Since that would increase the number of Senate seats that what is now CA would have, the state legislature would probably be inclined to support it, since it increases the opportunities of career advancement.

OTOH, you’d have a hard time getting the approval of the state legislatures to merge two existing states into one, since the combined entity would lose two Senators.

I’d been thinking about this question recently, due to the various discussions here about the Electoral College at the end of last year. Since the people in small states are effectively overrepresented in the EC (as well as in the US Senate), one remedy to the problem (if one considers it a problem) is for the large states to break themselves up into smaller ones, thus levelling the field somewhat.

I don’t think this would solve flowbark’s problem that “The pot of money that Sacramento controls is large enough to attract a broad phalanx of lobbyists, but without the detailed media scrutiny that comes at the federal level.” In the states I’ve lived in as an adult - VA, MD, and SC - same situation. Until there’s a media culture of covering state governments, I think we’re SOL there. (Name one state govt reporter or columnist, other than Molly Ivins.)

I’d like to see VA (my home state that I no longer live in :)) break up into Northern Virginia, and Downstate. We’d let the downstate part keep the VA name, as long as they let us go, but it won’t happen. No.Va. has the resources and the problems of a booming, rapidly growing urban/suburban area, but Richmond has all the power. So Richmond won’t lift a finger to solve No.Va.'s problems, nor will it delegate the authority so that No.Va. can solve them itself.

Think Richmond would let No.Va. go its own way, since it seems to have such low regard for it? Not a chance. No.Va. pays downstate’s bills, and downstate likes it that way.

I read in The People’s Almanac that Texas can, at any time, split into five states. It might be a good idea. But to do so one has to consider the interdependency between very large cities such as New York City and the other regions of that city’s state. New York City needs the water from upstate; while New York state needs the financial windfall from Wall Street and the City’s tourism. But for that among other reasons the split to smaller states may not come to pass.

From the Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas to the United States, Approved March 1 1845:

According to the Handbook of Texas Online, there have been more than a dozen proposals to divide Texas into separate states. Suggested names for the new states included Jacinto, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Matagorda, in addition to the standard East Texas, West Texas, South Texas, North Texas, and the not-so-standard Central Texas and Old Texas.

At least one of these resulted in the establishment of my alma mater, Texas Tech University. In the first couple of decades of the 20th century, the population in the western part of the state had grown tremendously. The people of West Texas demanded that the state provide more services in their area, and they lobbied for an agricultural and mechanical college. After a law calling for the establishment of West Texas A&M was repealed in 1919 and another attempt was vetoed in 1921, West Texans began calling for their area to secede from the state. In 1923, a third bill was introduced and signed by the governor, creating Texas Technological College and Lubbock was chosen as the site of the new school. Classes opened in 1925 with 915 students.

As for the OP, I sometimes think that if Texas were to divide into smaller states, the new state governments would be and could be more responsive to the needs of their citizens than the larger state government. West Texas and South Texas are different - economically, demographically, politically - from the Golden Triangle area of Dallas/Fort Worth-Houston-San Antonio, which is where the majority of the population is.

But it ain’t never gonna happen. West Texas will still get its voice heard in Austin because it holds a trump card - oil. As long as oil revenues continue to flow into Austin from the west, the area will still hold some power. In fact, our last governor (I think you all know his name), the current governor, Rick Perry, and the State Speaker of the House, Pete Laney, all hail from West Texas. The needs of big business usually outweigh the needs of the people. And in Texas, big business is held together by oil, from the oil fields of West Texas to the oil refineries of the Gulf Coast to the investment bankers and real estate speculators of Dallas, as long as needs of the “Oil Bidness” are taken care of, there won’t be much call for new states around here.