The man who is trying to split California into 6 different states believes New York and Texas will attempt to follow suit in movements that may add at least ten more stars to the United States flag.
“I know a lot of people are thinking about that. I actually think that once California has created six new states, my guess is that New York will create three and Texas will create five,” global venture capitalist Tim Draper said. “We might end up with a total of 60 states.”
Draper needs 807,000 “signatures of registered voters by July 18 to get his proposal on the November ballot.” Should he get the signatures, Draper said he is deciding between putting the initiative on the ballot in 2014 or 2016.
The six states proposed states are:
South California: San Diego and Orange counties
West California: includes Los Angeles and Santa Barbara
Central California: includes Bakersfield, Fresno and Stockton
Silicon Valley: includes San Francisco and San Jose
North California: Sacramento area
Jefferson: Redding and Eureka areas
When asked how splitting up California would impact “something like clout on the international scene that California has as a result of being this giant, powerful whole,” Draper said, “I don’t think it ties to state identity.”
“I think it ties to individual corporations that are benefiting the world,” he said. “Apple and Google and the Hollywood groups. They have a large influence on the world. I think that will continue to be a large influence on the world. I don’t think it has much to do with being one, individual state.”
Draper also has said that though he lives in Silicon Valley, he has “business interests all over the world.”
Draper, 55, reportedly “comes from three generations of Silicon Valley investors,” and his grandfather “founded Draper, Gaither and Anderson, the first venture-capital firm in the West.”
He is also not the first “to suggest that Silicon Valley secede from California. In October, a founder of a genetics firm in Silicon Valley said, “We need to build opt-in society, outside the US, run by technology.” Peter Thiel the co-founder of PayPal, “has proposed creating large floating platforms in international waters just off the coast of California, where tech firms could operate beyond the reach of regulation and taxation.”
As the Associated Press noted, though, “even if it were to be approved by voters, Congress would have to endorse the idea of creating six new states” — and adding 10 new senators. Analysts across the political spectrum have said that Congress would not agree to 10 more senators from California.
“This will never see the light of day – Democrats begin every presidential election with a 55-electoral vote advantage,” Kurt Bardella, a longtime Capitol Hill communications aide who founded the strategic communications firm Endeavor, said. “There is no viable scenario in which they will relinquish that.”