3 Californias? Measure to split state heads to November ballot
SACRAMENTO -- A proposal to split California has qualified for the ballot in November. CBS Los Angeles reports the California Secretary of State's office says the straightforwardly named measure "Division Of California Into Three States" has reached enough signatures.
When a person or group backing a measure says it has enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, those signatures are turned over for verification. From there, county elections officials randomly sample verify a random sample of signatures.
The measure backed by Tim Draper has hit nearly 420,000 valid or projected to be valid signatures in the random sample, topping the 365,000 needed to qualify for the November ballot.
Draper was behind a previous move to split the state into six parts, but he cut his ambition in half in August, opting just for three this time.
Northern Californians looking to run away from Sacramento and San Francisco to join the state of Jefferson will be severely disappointed as the proposal draws the line for Northern California all the way past the current state capital.
The new California would consist of coastal regions including Monterey County and Los Angeles.
Southern California, which you might expect would include Los Angeles, instead covers counties ranging from Fresno to San Diego.
The fate of Tulare County was up in the air when Draper's original proposal left the county out, presumably to be annexed to Nevada, and instead opted to pick Imperial County twice. He's since updated it to include Tulare County as part of Southern California.
Here's a list of the counties in each region:
Northern California
- Alameda
- Alpine
- Amador
- Butte
- Calaveras
- Colusa,
- Contra Costa
- Del Norte
- El Dorado
- Glenn
- Humboldt
- Lake
- Lassen
- Marin
- Mariposa
- Mendocino
- Merced
- Modoc
- Napa
- Nevada
- Placer
- Plumas
- Sacramento
- San Francisco
- San Joaquin
- San Mateo
- Santa Clara
- Santa Cruz
- Sierra
- Siskiyou
- Shasta
- Solano
- Sonoma
- Stanislaus
- Sutter
- Tehama
- Trinity
- Tuolumne
- Yolo
- Yuba
California
- Los Angeles
- Monterey
- San Benito
- San Luis Obispo
- Santa Barbara
- Ventura
Southern California
- Fresno
- Imperial (twice)
- Inyo
- Kern
- Kings
- Madera
- Mono
- Orange
- Riverside
- San Bernardino
- San Diego
- Tulare County