NationStates

The Corparation wrote:Also it's not that difficult to get someone to sign when you've already snagged a person with a clipboard worth of petitions after sweet talking them about how we need to save puppies oh and also sign all of these other things while you have the clipboard.

Yeah, that's where you can tell the honest volunteers from the people being paid to get signatures. The honest volunteers will only have a couple of petitions with no real order to their presentation. The paid collectors have a big ol' pile of them and start the stack off with a lot of generally agreeable things about schools or animal cruelty and so on, and sneak the disagreeable one (split the state, abortion restrictions, etc) at the end hoping people will just blank out and sign whatever's in front of them.

I freely admit to having more fun than I should frustrating the latter, because I insist on reading every single thing thoroughly. The honest volunteers are generally all, "Yeah, that's cool." The paid collectors get fussy and impatient as I take my time reading over everything. So they get me through the agreeable ones... and then they get so absurdly frustrated and argumentative when I want to read the disagreeable one instead of blindly signing it. The really obnoxious ones will try to argue at length why I should sign the disagreeable one and so on and so forth. It's great fun when I've got some free time. ^_^

As someone who is (legally, though never lived there) a Californian, I say this is one hell of a dumb idea. This is going to and deserves to be shot down.

Chan Island wrote:As someone who is (legally, though never lived there) a Californian, I say this is one hell of a dumb idea. This is going to and deserves to be shot down.

Why exactly is it a bad idea, aside from the fact it'd be total border gore?

We need fewer states, not more states.

Thankfully, neither party wants the other party to have more Senators, so it's a non-issue.

Khataiy wrote:

Chan Island wrote:As someone who is (legally, though never lived there) a Californian, I say this is one hell of a dumb idea. This is going to and deserves to be shot down.

Why exactly is it a bad idea, aside from the fact it'd be total border gore?

The whole idea is based on stripping California of its votes in the electoral college and allowing Republicans to override the popular vote.

Pelasgea wrote:

Khataiy wrote:Why exactly is it a bad idea, aside from the fact it'd be total border gore?

The whole idea is based on stripping California of its votes in the electoral college and allowing Republicans to override the popular vote.

I don't see how

Khataiy wrote:

Pelasgea wrote:The whole idea is based on stripping California of its votes in the electoral college and allowing Republicans to override the popular vote.

I don't see how

Well a state would be created away from the coast which is more Republican but has a lot less population. This would give more electoral votes for Republicans. I'm assuming you know how the electoral college works but if not you can look that up.

Khataiy wrote:

Pelasgea wrote:The whole idea is based on stripping California of its votes in the electoral college and allowing Republicans to override the popular vote.

I don't see how

It's basically a glorified attempt to gerrymander state lines instead of merely district lines.

As for reasons besides border gore that it's a stupid idea:

• Complicating the already complicated water rights and distribution system.
• Basically creating even more waste because instead of one state legislature and all related baggage, it's creating three new legislatures and all related baggage.
• Related, the ungodly pain in the ass clusterfuck trying to separate the state's assets (finances, government property and equipment, etc) appropriately would be a massive waste of time and resources that would probably make the messiest of divorces look well-mannered in comparison.
• At least one of the three (if not all of the) proposed states to be carved out of California would be greatly unlikely to sustain itself economically without substantial federal aid. Currently, California as a whole pays more into the federal government than it receives in return, probably owing to the wealthier and more populous coastal areas subsidizing a bunch of stuff for the less wealthy and more sparsely populated rural areas. The Bay area is unlikely to be able to do that alone for the proposed Northern California, San Diego is unlikely to be able to do that alone for the proposed Southern California. The proposed "California" would probably do slightly better than the other two, simply owing to being much smaller and having far less rural region to support but it's still no certain thing.
• Disaster relief. When California has a disaster, we go big. From the periodic large earthquakes that can flatten a sizable chunk of a populated area to our annual and worsening drought and wildfire situations (and the related mudslide and flooding threat in the wake of said fires,) NONE of the three proposed states could take on that load alone. Odds are that they'd still need to form some sort of mutual aid agreement, at which point it's just making existing bureaucracies even less efficient and more of a headache.

There's probably more I forgot about, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Reploid Productions wrote:

The Corparation wrote:Also it's not that difficult to get someone to sign when you've already snagged a person with a clipboard worth of petitions after sweet talking them about how we need to save puppies oh and also sign all of these other things while you have the clipboard.

Yeah, that's where you can tell the honest volunteers from the people being paid to get signatures. The honest volunteers will only have a couple of petitions with no real order to their presentation. The paid collectors have a big ol' pile of them and start the stack off with a lot of generally agreeable things about schools or animal cruelty and so on, and sneak the disagreeable one (split the state, abortion restrictions, etc) at the end hoping people will just blank out and sign whatever's in front of them.

I freely admit to having more fun than I should frustrating the latter, because I insist on reading every single thing thoroughly. The honest volunteers are generally all, "Yeah, that's cool." The paid collectors get fussy and impatient as I take my time reading over everything. So they get me through the agreeable ones... and then they get so absurdly frustrated and argumentative when I want to read the disagreeable one instead of blindly signing it. The really obnoxious ones will try to argue at length why I should sign the disagreeable one and so on and so forth. It's great fun when I've got some free time. ^_^

The biggest warning sign for me was always introducing themselves with the question "Are you registered voter in the state of California". From the few times I've been polite enough to stop and look at clipboards of dumb proposals, generally I've found the people with more honest (But usually still dumb) intentions start with whatever it is they care about and want to inform people about their (dumb) idea even if they can't sign. The people who were hired as part of a drive to get something dumb on the ballot don't want to waste time with people who can't sign so they'll generally ask before they do anything else.

Reploid Productions wrote:

Khataiy wrote:I don't see how

It's basically a glorified attempt to gerrymander state lines instead of merely district lines.

As for reasons besides border gore that it's a stupid idea:

• Complicating the already complicated water rights and distribution system.
• Basically creating even more waste because instead of one state legislature and all related baggage, it's creating three new legislatures and all related baggage.
• Related, the ungodly pain in the ass clusterfuck trying to separate the state's assets (finances, government property and equipment, etc) appropriately would be a massive waste of time and resources that would probably make the messiest of divorces look well-mannered in comparison.
• At least one of the three (if not all of the) proposed states to be carved out of California would be greatly unlikely to sustain itself economically without substantial federal aid. Currently, California as a whole pays more into the federal government than it receives in return, probably owing to the wealthier and more populous coastal areas subsidizing a bunch of stuff for the less wealthy and more sparsely populated rural areas. The Bay area is unlikely to be able to do that alone for the proposed Northern California, San Diego is unlikely to be able to do that alone for the proposed Southern California. The proposed "California" would probably do slightly better than the other two, simply owing to being much smaller and having far less rural region to support but it's still no certain thing.
• Disaster relief. When California has a disaster, we go big. From the periodic large earthquakes that can flatten a sizable chunk of a populated area to our annual and worsening drought and wildfire situations (and the related mudslide and flooding threat in the wake of said fires,) NONE of the three proposed states could take on that load alone. Odds are that they'd still need to form some sort of mutual aid agreement, at which point it's just making existing bureaucracies even less efficient and more of a headache.

There's probably more I forgot about, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

It seems like there's more to it than gerrymandering, like state laws that Conservatives disagree with for example

Khataiy wrote:It seems like there's more to it than gerrymandering, like state laws that Conservatives disagree with for example

Hence the attempted gerrymandering of state lines. "Screw your laws, we'll make our OWN California! With blackjack! And hookers!"

Reploid Productions wrote:

Khataiy wrote:It seems like there's more to it than gerrymandering, like state laws that Conservatives disagree with for example

Hence the attempted gerrymandering of state lines. "Screw your laws, we'll make our OWN California! With blackjack! And hookers!"

That's not gerrymadnering, dividing the lines to get more votes is, but not disagreeing with laws

Khataiy wrote:

Reploid Productions wrote:Hence the attempted gerrymandering of state lines. "Screw your laws, we'll make our OWN California! With blackjack! And hookers!"

That's not gerrymadnering, dividing the lines to get more votes is, but not disagreeing with laws

Okay disagreeing on specific policies is not gerrymandering. You would agree though that this proposal is about dividing the state to get more electoral votes though, right?

Pelasgea wrote:

Khataiy wrote:That's not gerrymadnering, dividing the lines to get more votes is, but not disagreeing with laws

Okay disagreeing on specific policies is not gerrymandering. You would agree though that this proposal is about dividing the state to get more electoral votes though, right?

It probably is, I'm not fully convinced though, I don't really follow stuff like this to be fair though.

I might actually be fine with this if we went by the popular vote in presidential elections.

Pelasgea wrote:I might actually be fine with this if we went by the popular vote in presidential elections.

communists plz go

Washington Resistance Army wrote:

Pelasgea wrote:I might actually be fine with this if we went by the popular vote in presidential elections.

communists plz go

Okay I'll go back to my bunker.

San Lumen wrote:That's not even getting into potential issues with splitting the state. For example there are 10 University of California campuses. Imagine a family in Los Angeles having to pay out of state tuition to got to Berkeley.

I don't know if someone's addressed this already, but that's not how it works here in New England. Students from different New England states get reduced tuition; I'd assume the three proposed states made up of California could easily make a similar arrangement with each other.

Van Riebeeck Land wrote:

San Lumen wrote:Or New York, Illinois or Maryland? Where does it end?

Let's do it!

Splits my state into three, automatically garbage. And ‘West Connecticut’? *rage*

I will be disappointed if one of them isn't called San Andreas.

An Alan Smithee Nation wrote:I will be disappointed if one of them isn't called San Andreas.

It won’t be in the unlikely event it passes

San Lumen wrote:

An Alan Smithee Nation wrote:I will be disappointed if one of them isn't called San Andreas.

It won’t be in the unlikely event it passes

It which case it will be all his fault.

Eh, happened once before already so why not?

So is there a point to this beyond basically making it impossible for Democrats to win a national election ever again?

Vassenor wrote:So is there a point to this beyond basically making it impossible for Democrats to win a national election ever again?

Exactly how would this make it impossible for Democrats to win a national election?