Sorry balkanization fans, it looks like venture capitalist Tim Draper's plan to split California into three states
isn't going to happen, at least not anytime soon. Well, ok, it was never going to happen, let's be real. It was preposterous from the get-go and-huh? What plan to divide California into three states? Remember? Back in April?
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Thunderdome as a means of settling
disputes are at least, what, five years off? |
Here, I'll sum up. Draper is a venture capitalist and bored, I guess. Probably because he doesn't have a real job. So
over the last few years he's headed a couple campaigns to try and get Californians to agree to split the state up into smaller states. The first time it was six states, this more recent one was three. He says it's because California is ungovernable, which I don't get. I mean, we have the nation's highest GDP, a decent standard of living and, to date, no Thunderdomes. It's not perfect, but it's at least a little governable.
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Money: 'giving rich people
disproportionate influence
since the invention of money.' |
But here we are. So with the best interests of the average Californian in mind, Draper mobilized an enormous grass roots movement to break the yoke of-sorry, did I say grassroots? I meant he threw a shit ton of money (a shit ton being $1.2 million), at getting enough signatures together to get an initiative on the ballot for November. Yeah, another ballot initiative. It's a thing we have in California for when we just want to forgo representative democracy and go right to mob rule.
Oh, and I may have indicated that he had the best interests of average Californians in mind, but I think he's thinking of the average Californian who lives in the Bay Area, works at a tech company and makes six-figures. Anyone in the poorer countries would find themselves suddenly and catastrophically cut off from the state's tax base.
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"Yeah...and...?"
-Tim Draper, noted...uh...
what does he do again?
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"Whooo! Prop 8! Homophobia forever!"
-some asshole
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But lucky for most of us, the State Supreme Court quashed it, questioning the validity of the initiative. They said '
the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election.' Which, cool, because you can't put the dissolution of the state up for a show of hands just because you get enough signatures together. Remember Prop 8? Yeah, ballot initiatives can suck sometimes, and you need people who know what they're doing as a check.
The court also decided that it would have to look into whether breaking the state up would even be legal under the state constitution. Usually constitutions don't have a self-destruct clause, but hey, I guess it never hurts to check.
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Blah blah blah, hackysack, so on and so forth cilantro, huh...
nope, nothing in here about breaking up into three states just because
come rich guy conned a bunch of rubes into signing a petition. |
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| Pictured: Cahoots. |
But Draper is having
nunavut, and
in a sour-grapes-y statement accused the court of silencing voters and called this a sign of corruption:
"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, with accusations of cahootery
Wow. He goes on to explain that this is the kind of thing that happens in third world countries which is first of all a shitty term used by privileged people to disparage developing countries and also weird because such countries are sort of famous for letting the wealthy elite use their money and power to bend public policy to suit their own needs. Hey, wait a minute...
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That's the government for you, always acting like
duly elected representatives of the people... |
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