Initiative to split California into three parts removed from ballot by state's Supreme Court

Proponents of the proposition have said that splitting the state into three would lead to better federal representation from lawmakers.</s>Billionaire Tim Draper’s proposition to break California into three states won’t be on the ballot in November.

The California Supreme Court said Wednesday the measure, Proposition 9, shouldn’t be on the Nov. 6 ballot because the potential harm in permitting it “outweighs the potential harm in delaying” it to a future election.

The justices said “substantial” questions about the proposition’s validity warrant review. The court asked Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state, and Draper to explain by Aug. 20 why a conservation group’s request to block the measure shouldn’t be granted. Draper will have 30 days to respond.

“Apparently, the insiders are in cahoots and the establishment doesn’t want to find out how many people don’t like the way California is being governed,” Draper said in an emailed statement. “Whether you agree or not with this initiative, this is not the way democracies are supposed to work.” Draper, a venture capitalist, sought the initiative because he said the world’s fifth-largest economy is “nearly ungovernable” under the current system.

The Planning and Conservation League, which filed the lawsuit this month, argued that the state constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both legislative chambers before a proposal for a significant change of government can be put to voters.

In a statement after the court’s decision, Howard Penn, executive director of the group, said Prop. 9 is “a costly, flawed scheme” that would “waste billions of California taxpayer dollars, create chaos in public services including safeguarding our environment and literally eliminate the State of California — all to satisfy the whims of one billionaire.”

The measure outlines creating three smaller state governments: Northern California, encompassing San Francisco and 39 other counties; California, covering Los Angeles and five other counties; and Southern California, accounting for areas including Fresno and San Diego.</s>Californians won't be voting after all this November on whether the Golden State should be carved up into three separate states.

The state Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a move that would have put the controversial initiative on the ballot for the mid-term elections.

The measure, known as Proposition 9, had earned enough signatures to be placed on the November 6, 2018 ballot but the state's highest court torpedoed the move.

In a unanimous decision, the court said it opposed the proposal because of 'significant questions' about its validity and 'potential harm.'

Proposition 9, also known as 'Cal 3,' would split the sprawling western state into three states: California, Northern California and Southern California, each with a population of around 13 million.

Supporters claimed this would result in a 'more effective education system, more sensible taxes and more reliable roads.'

The measure was backed by Timothy Draper, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who expressed disappointment that 'tens of millions of voters won't have a chance to make this decision.'

'The establishment doesn't want to find out how many people don't like the way California is being governed,' Draper said in a statement.

Proposition 9 was opposed by both the Democratic and Republican parties and the Los Angeles Times praised the court decision.

'In a welcome bit of relief, California will avoid a convoluted, messy and completely unnecessary battle this November over breaking up the Golden State,' it said in an editorial.

Draper had tried to push through a similar proposal in 2014 but failed when the state's secretary of state found that 40 percent of the signatures were fraudulent.</s>The California Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked a proposal to split the state into three from appearing as a ballot measure in November, according to multiple reports.

The proposal, championed by venture capitalist Tim Draper, had gathered at least 600,000 signatures which was enough to earn a spot on the midterm ballot.

The court said that it decided to remove the measure from the ballot “because significant questions have been raised regarding the proposition’s validity,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

“We conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election,” the court wrote.

If passed, the proposal, known as “Cal-3,” would have divided the state into California, Northern California and Southern California, each with similar populations. …

Click here to read the full article from The Hill</s>A measure proposing California be split into three separate states will be removed from the state's November ballot after a Wednesday order by the state's Supreme Court.

"Significant questions have been raised regarding the proposition's validity," the order reads.

The proposition could, however, appear on a future ballot if the court ultimately rules in its favor.

Proposition 9 – which would split the Golden State into California, Northern California and Southern California – was declared eligible for California's ballot in June.

It's just the latest setback for one of more than 200 long-shot efforts to split the Golden State over the years.

The challenge to Proposition 9's validity was brought to the court by the Planning and Conservation League, an organization with a goal of protecting "California from the destruction caused by fast-paced and poorly planned developments," according to the group's website.

Venture capitalist Tim Draper – who spent more than $1.7 million on the initiative – criticized the decision in a statement: "Whether you agree or not with this initiative, this is not the way democracies are supposed to work."

He says splitting the state would lead to improvements in infrastructure and education while lowering taxes: “States will be more accountable to us and can cooperate and compete for citizens," he told the Los Angeles Times in an email last summer.

In 2014, Draper failed with a similar proposal after California's secretary of state deemed about 40 percent of the signatures in support of the initiative to be illegitimate.

The Planning and Conservation League argues that dividing the nation's most populous state into three would drastically change California's government structure beyond what can be accomplished through a ballot initiative.</s>Executive producer Tim Draper speaks onstage during the 'Startup U' panel discussion at the ABC Family portion of the 2015 Summer TCA Tour at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on August 5, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. Frederick M. Brown/Getty

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to remove from the November ballot a measure proposing the state be divided into three.

The court said that "significant" questions over the validity of Proposition 9 had been raised and concluded "that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election," according to The Los Angeles Times.

Proposition 9, backed by Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper, had pushed the longtime effort to split California into three states: Northern California, California, and Southern California.

In June the proposal qualified for the November ballot after an ambitious campaign called Cal 3, financial backing from Draper, and more than 402,468 valid signatures from supporters.

"The concept of breaking this enormous state into smaller, more manageable states is not new," Draper, an early investor in Tesla, Skype, and Hotmail, told the court in written arguments, The Los Angeles Times reported.

He added: "In fact, the voters of California were asked to, and did approve, the Pico Act in 1859, which asked Congress to approve splitting the state into two.

"Congress never acted on that request, as it might not do if Proposition 9 is approved."

If Proposition 9 had made it to the ballot, the plan would have needed approval from both houses of the California legislature and be approved by the US Congress before being put into place.

Supporters of the Three States Initiative had argued that California isn't fairly represented with just two senators in Washington, DC, representing more than 39 million people.

The proposal would have given the people of California six senators — two representing each new state.

Critics, meanwhile, have argued that the split would diminish the power of Democrats in the state, which has long been a stronghold for the Democratic Party.

This is the third time Draper has tried to propose breaking up California. He backed proposals in 2012 and 2014 to create six states out of California, but neither initiative received enough valid signatures to appear on a ballot.

In 2016, an effort called Calexit attempted to split California from the United States.</s>In words not said often in no-fault California: the divorce is off.

That’s one way to interpret Wednesday’s ruling by the California Supreme Court to strike Proposition 9, aka “Cal 3”, from the November ballot. If approved, it would have started in motion the break-up of America’s nation-state into three smaller entities, each with the electoral clout of Ohio.

Barring another attempt by the initiative’s sponsor, billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper, the most populous state in the union will stay intact for the foreseeable future – for better and for worse.

Here are three takeaways from “Cal 3”’s setback.

It Makes Legal Sense. In its order, a unanimous court said it acted so because “significant questions have been raised regarding the proposition’s validity and because we conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election.”

In case you didn’t go to law school, here’s what the court was trying to say: there’s a question of whether the California State Legislature needs to sign off on Draper’s plan before it’s put before voters (if you’re interested in how Virginia morphed into two states, it’s a fascinating and complicated story having to do with secession and clashing cultural identities).

As Prop 9 constitutes a change in laws defining California’s boundaries, does that mean it’s tantamount to a revision of the state’s Constitution? If so, then the measure requires two-third approval by both changes of the Legislature.

And there’s precedent. This isn’t the first time the California Supreme Court has slammed the brakes on a ballot initiative. In 2000, for example, the court struck down a measure on lawmakers’ pay and political redistricting (justices claimed it violated the “single-subject rule” requiring initiatives to deal with only one topic).

But that doesn’t mean everything is on the up-and-up in California . . .

It’s Also Politics As Usual. An environmental group, California’s Planning and Conservation League (PCL), was the party that went to court to put a halt to Prop 9 (and got it done in only nine days).

Was the group motivated by its concern for California’s pristine landscape (its stated mission: “working the halls of California’s Capitol to promote cutting-edge policies that safeguard our lands, air, waters, and communities, while building strong coalitions and empowering the public”)?

Then again, groups like PCL do well in the current status quo that Draper wants to break up – a Legislature dominated by progressive majorities in both chambers that see the world through the same green lens as the state's environmental activists.

Draper’s subdivided California included a new land called “Southern California” consisting of the counties of Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Tulare. Such a state, absent the metropolises of Los Angeles and San Francisco, might vote Republican in election. Given its heavy concentration of agriculture and regional disdain for governmental dictates, it’d definitely tilt right-of-center on environmental regulation.

And maybe that didn’t sit well with PCL – not so much concerns for the democratic process as goodbye to utter Democratic domination of politics and policy.

The VC Ventures Forth Again? Four years ago, Tim Draper made another run at trying to break California into smaller pieces. However, his “Six Californias” initiative failed to qualify for the ballot after state election officials determined it fell shy of the requisite voter signatures (the measure needed 807,615 valid signatures; Draper handed in 1.14 million, but the state deemed only 752,685 to be valid).

It wasn’t Draper’s first political rodeo. In 2000, he was the brains and the bank behind the ill-fated Proposition 38, which would have required the state to pay $4,000 for any child who wanted to attended a private school.

Draper’s measure received only 29.4% of the statewide tally, which is what comes from poking at the bear – in this case, the all-powerful California Teachers Association (with help from a Democratic attorney general who, entrusted with Prop 38’s ballot summary and title, gave it the toxic “School Vouchers. State-Funded Private and Religious Education. Public School Funding”).

Thrice foiled in the initiative process, the question moving forward: does Draper want to keep tilting at windmills?

Then again, he’s not the only wealthy Northern Californian trying to upset the political applecart.

Tom Steyer, a Bay Area hedge billionaire, has emerged as something of a progressive equivalent to the Koch Brothers. But unlike Draper, Steyer is overtly partisan (he spent $90 million on Democratic causes in the 2016 election cycle). Whereas Draper’s crusade is subdividing the Golden State, the impeachment-crazed Steyer’s current passion project is making Donald Trump an enemy of the state.

There's one other difference: Draper’s given no indication that he plans to run for public office. But when Steyer visits New Hampshire, as he did earlier this month, 2020 speculation mounts.

Such would be the tragedy should this court decision chase Draper from the political field. Re-designing California may make him look like a mad monk, but Draper’s core message – something has to be done about an unwieldy government in Sacramento that doesn’t deliver the goods on schools, roads and public safety – is a conversation the state sorely needs.

And California shouldn’t need a court to explain that.

I invite you to follow me on Twitter: @hooverwhalen</s>California Supreme Court blocks ballot measure to divide state into three

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked a proposal to split the state into three from appearing as a ballot measure in November, according to multiple reports.

The proposal, championed by venture capitalist Tim Draper, had gathered at least 600,000 signatures which was enough to earn a spot on the midterm ballot.

The court said that it decided to remove the measure from the ballot “because significant questions have been raised regarding the proposition’s validity,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

“We conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election,” the court wrote.

If passed, the proposal, known as “Cal-3,” would have divided the state into California, Northern California and Southern California, each with similar populations.– READ MORE

That’s the latest proposal in a California city, which is set to become the first in the nation to deploy a “universal basic income” (UBI). Under the plan,100 residents of Stockton will receive $500 a month in cash, with no strings attached. Work, don’t work, whatever.

The free-money program will start in 2019 and run for 18 months, costing the city $900,000.

That the program is kicking off in Stockton is ironic.The city fell millions of dollars in debt through expensive city-funded programs and development projects, leading to its bankruptcy in 2012.

The program is the brainchild of Michael Tubbs, the city’s 27-year-old mayor. “We’ve overspent on things like arenas and marinas and things of that sort to try to lure in tourism and dollars that way,” Tubbs said, according to Fox News. – READ MORE</s>A Silicon Valley venture capitalist’s pipe dream to split up California into several states inched a little closer to reality last month when it made it onto the November ballot. But on Wednesday, the California Supreme Court unanimously decided to scrap the plan from the ballot. Tim Draper, the billionaire behind the measure, responded to the ruling: “WTF?”



Draper reportedly spent $1.2 million to further the aptly-titled Cal 3 plan, which would have divided California into three states: Southern California, Northern California, and California. While he did collect more than 600,000 signatures, nearly double the required amount to get on the ballot, the Supreme Court ultimately reviewed the measure after a legal challenge was filed by the Planning and Conservation League (PCL) last week. In a statement to Gizmodo, PCL executive director Howard Penn said the environmental organization “opposed the measure because splitting the state up doesn’t solve any of our existing challenges, it just makes them worse. We have worked hard for the past 50 plus years on statewide policies that help make California a healthy place to live. If the state gets split up into three parts, it would be like hitting the reset button and starting over… you won’t know what you’ll get with three new states.”

The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in PCL’s favor: “Because significant questions have been raised regarding the proposition’s validity, and because we conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election, respondent Alex Padilla, as Secretary of State of the State of California, is directed to refrain from placing Proposition 9 on the November 6, 2018, ballot.”

Draper responded in a Facebook post, accusing “insiders” of being “in cahoots.” He added:

“The whole point of the initiative process was to be set up as a protection from a government that was no longer representing its people. Now that protection has been corrupted. Whether you agree or not with this initiative, this is not the way democracies are supposed to work. This kind of corruption is what happens in third world countries.”

Draper’s stated motivation for carving up the state into smaller entities is to bring Californians closer to their government. “Our government will be more in touch with our individual constituents,” Draper told TIME in 2014 when he was championing his previous plan to split up California into not three, but six different states.

Steven Maviglio, a Democratic political consultant who has campaigned against the plan, told Mercury News that “Splitting California into three new states will triple the amount of special interests, lobbyists, politicians and bureaucracy,” adding that the state can improve the way it confronts its problems but that Draper’s Cal 3 plan “is a massive distraction that will cause political chaos and greater inequality.”

If Draper’s plan did make it onto the ballot, it would have still needed a majority of the votes in November as well as approval by Congress.

Draper’s impassioned conviction that he, an investor and bitcoin enthusiast, knows what’s politically in the best interest of all Californians is a classic example of the dangerous hubris of wildly wealthy tech entrepreneurs. It’s hardly the first time a Silicon Valley billionaire extended their influence into governmental affairs, and it certainly won’t be the last. But the Supreme Court’s skepticism of Draper’s plan, prompting the justices to review and ultimately shoot down the measure, prove that a million dollars and hundreds of thousands of (likely misguided) residents aren’t enough to bring a wild plan to life.

Updated at 12:45pm ET with a comment from the Planning and Conservation League.</s>California Supreme Court Squashes Bid To Split State Into Three

California will be staying in one piece, at least for now, after the state's supreme court ruled that a proposal to divide California into three cannot be placed on the ballot in November.

Tim Draper, a wealthy venture capitalist, has spent years arguing that the Golden State would be better off as several smaller states. He says California is too large to be governed effectively and that splitting up would result in "better decision making and real solutions closer to home." This year, he got enough signatures to put it before voters — although experts said that even if the proposal passed, it would face a range of daunting legal and political hurdles.

Then the Planning and Conservation League (PCL), a nonprofit environmental group in California, filed a lawsuit to block the measure from getting to a vote.

The PCL says the proposal amounts to a change in the state constitution, which must be decided by the Legislature before it goes to voters, The Sacramento Bee reports.

"We opposed the measure because splitting the state up doesn't solve any of our existing challenges, it just makes them worse," Howard Penn, the executive director of PCL, told NPR via email. "We have worked hard for the past 50 plus years on statewide policies that help make California a healthy place to live. If the state gets split up into three parts, it would be like hitting the reset button and starting over."

The justices unanimously agreed that the proposal shouldn't be on the ballot, at least for the time being.

The state Supreme Court wrote that "significant questions have been raised regarding the proposition's validity" and "the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election."

This isn't the end of the legal dispute. The court has asked Draper to respond with any reasons why he believes the PCL suit is wrong, leaving open the possibility that "Three Californias" might make it onto a future ballot.

In a statement issued last week, prior to the state Supreme Court decision, Citizens for Cal 3, a group funded by Draper, accused PCL of "doing the dirty work of the Sacramento establishment."

"This lawsuit is just another example of how Sacramento politicians, powerful unions and their high-priced lobbyists are trying to hold onto power at the expense of California voters," the group said.

If a future proposal to split the state made it past voters as well as the state Legislature, it would still need approval from Congress, as Danielle Karson reports for NPR.

"Political analyst Raphael Sonenshein says it wouldn't sit well with lawmakers: 'Republicans aren't gonna like more senators for California, and Democrats aren't gonna want California's 55 electoral votes to be divided up,' " Karson reports. "Analysts say voter approval would be a long shot as well. A recent poll found 70 percent prefer to keep California geographically intact."
The Supreme Court of California blocks Tim Draper's proposition to break California into three states, stating that "significant questions have been raised regarding the proposition's validity".