Billionaire Champions Plan To Chop California Into Six States

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-billionaires-breakup-plan-would-chop-california-into-six-states-2014-14


Timothy Draper, Founder and Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, speaks at the Reuters Global Technology Summit New York

San Francisco (Reuters) - A long-shot effort to break California into six separate states got a boost on Monday, when the billionaire venture capitalist behind the proposal said he had gathered enough signatures to place it on the ballot in two years.

Timothy Draper, a founder of a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that has invested in Twitter, Skype and Tesla, among other companies, has been agitating for months for a ballot initiative to chop the most populous U.S. state into smaller entities.

"It’s important because it will help us create a more responsive, more innovative and more local government, and that ultimately will end up being better for all of Californians," said Roger Salazar, a spokesman for the campaign. "The idea ... is to create six states with responsive local governments - states that are more representative and accountable to their constituents."

Salazar said Monday that the campaign had gathered more than the roughly 808,000 signatures needed to place the measure on the November, 2016 ballot. Draper and other supporters plan to file the signatures with California Secretary of State Debra Bowen on Tuesday.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-billionaires-breakup-plan-would-chop-california-into-six-states-2014-14#ixzz37WVxRduI

[eridani]

1. As if Repukes will go along with having 11-12 moe Dem Senators n/t

[madville]

2. Or any other state

Why would any other state support an action that would dilute or diminish their own standing and increase their competition for federal funds. They can vote on it all they like, never going to be able to get any traction in Congress from any other existing state.

[pinboy3niner]

3. iirc, analyses of past proposals like this found a net GOP advantage in national elections. nt

[eridani]

4. Even so--a lot more Dem senators might be worth it n/t

[brooklynite]

8. You're misreading this...

...the goal is to carve out more conservative area in the north south and east which would likely elect Republicans.

[Starry Messenger]

5. Draper turned a nice old San Mateo landmark into his personal vanity project.

Every time I have to drive past it on my way to work, I have a vein pop out on my forehead.

[n2doc]

6. More cost efficient that way

far cheaper to buy 2 senators and a congress critter from a small state.

[CBGLuthier]

7. Get all the signatures you want. You still need the US Congress's approval.

That will never happen. Unless we have another civil war and some part of California splinters like Virginia did but I don't think that will happen either.

[SwankyXomb]

9. This won't pass for four simple words

"Who gets the water?"

[MisterP]

10. the tech world's full of these strangely-similar execs

Jimmy Wales, Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Guy Kawasaki, George Gilder, Elon Musk--regardless of their product, regardless of their expressed politics, they all have the attitude that "I just drew something on a cocktail napkin! stop everything and enact it!"

[MindPilot]

11. Why does anyone think what this guy says is newsworthy?

This is the problem with the media; they take shit like this and present it as something substantive and credible, when they should be pointing and laughing.