VC Tim Draper has revived his proposal to carve California into smaller parts
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Re: VC Tim Draper has revived his proposal to carve California into smaller parts
#2Is there a government structure where three regions could operate autonomously within a single state of a larger union?
Re: VC Tim Draper has revived his proposal to carve California into smaller parts
#3Is there a government structure where three regions could operate autonomously within a single state of a larger union?
Communalism
Re: VC Tim Draper has revived his proposal to carve California into smaller parts
#4Is there a government structure where three regions could operate autonomously within a single state of a larger union?
Each US state consists of numerous counties, each typically with a city county seat.
California for example is broken into 58 counties. Oakland is the Alameda county seat.
To follow that premise somewhat, you'd try to give the three new giant regions more independence vs a traditional county. You'd be looking to create a new super-structure above county and below state; the super regions would govern over the counties within (or you'd abolish all the counties and just essentially create three counties in California). If you move to full autonomous (within the US Federal system), then you're really going to have to make them proper separate states or change to the status Puerto Rico has (unincorporated US territory).
Re: VC Tim Draper has revived his proposal to carve California into smaller parts
#5Oddly enough, I'm vaguely in favor of this -- but at the same time I don't think it should be implemented.
I've lived in a Unitary system (UK) through a bunch of different variations of a Federal system (NZ, Australia, Switzerland, USA, and even EU in a way) -- worth noticing Switzerland apparently was the inspiration for the Californian direct democracy.
Each really favors a different set of circumstances. It was shocking in Switzerland to be there for a few votes where people voted to very directly raise taxes. I couldn't imagine that in Australia.
Splitting up California has some appeal as a bar-room hypothetical -- but in some ways aggregating state powers might be better. e.g. Education, policing, infrastructure, is very, very, (very) fragmented. Many of these issues are because they are either directly or indirectly locally administered. I don't see this really reducing that fragmentation.
In fact -- I often wonder if the Bay Area would be better off as a combined municipality. Probably for issues like infrastructure, certainly.
Interested in the counterpoints to all that.
Re: VC Tim Draper has revived his proposal to carve California into smaller parts
#6I think it's a logical failure to assume that large problems need sweeping change. That may work for startups but it's dangerous in governance. This impulse drives the pendulum effect in American politics and our current state of the executive branch is a case study in its risks.
Re: VC Tim Draper has revived his proposal to carve California into smaller parts
#7Is there a government structure where three regions could operate autonomously within a single state of a larger union?
Sure. States have a lot of power under the constitution - I'm sure a state could do something like that... but that's not the point of this effort. Tim Draper pretty clearly wants more Conservative Senators, which he thinks he would get by splitting CA into 3 pieces.
Re: VC Tim Draper has revived his proposal to carve California into smaller parts
#8Not a terrible idea. NY should be split as well, maybe then the NYC subway will be fixed. NYC metro area pays 11B more in taxes that takes back. Basically subsidizing the rest of the state while we swelter in subways stuck in tunnels, crappy service, and other nonsense.
While there are people in Upstate NY that think that NYC politics occupies the state's agenda too much.
I honestly believe the state would be better split.
http://media.syracuse.com/state_impact/photo/2015/08/24/new-...
https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/in-the-news/joseph-e-robac...
Re: VC Tim Draper has revived his proposal to carve California into smaller parts
#9Is there a government structure where three regions could operate autonomously within a single state of a larger union?
Honest questions for discussion: Assuming for the sake of argument that the current status quo is not an option, what would be the particular advantage you are seeking in creating such a structure rather than just having three states? (Obviously the status quo is an option, the default one in some sense, but since that probably dominates a rational conversation I'm discarding it to get somewhere interesting.)
Would it be advantageous for, say, Vermont and Rhode Island to create such a superstructure?
How would you address the question of redundancy? We've got a couple centuries now of the line between federal, state, and municipality to go off of, and since you're presumably not going to create more government powers through this mechanism, how do you propose redrawing the relevant powers in a way that makes sense?
Re: VC Tim Draper has revived his proposal to carve California into smaller parts
#10Incredibly patronising article. I hate this type of 'journalism'.