(今日万维有一篇文章介绍一个欲把加州分成6个小州的情况：把加州一分为六 http://news.creaders.net/headline/newsViewer.php?nid=633492&id=1406732#.U8aOy0C9VqM
有兴趣的朋友不妨读一下进一步的介绍，可以当作一个美国制度下，这些治国（制州）可能是如何运作的。当然也是利益的驱动的例题研究：http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Californias）
Six Californias
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Map of the Six Californias
Jefferson
North California
Silicon Valley
Central California
West California
South California
Six Californias is a proposed initiative to split the U.S. state of California into six states. It is proposed as a California ballot measure for the 2016 state elections. Venture capitalist Tim Draper launched the measure in December 2013. If the measure passes, it does
not legally split California immediately; consent would eventually need
to be given by both the California State Legislature and the U.S. Congress to admit the new states to the union per Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution.
Rather, the measure establishes several procedures within the state
government and its 58 counties that prepare California for the proposed
split, and then instructs the Governor of California to submit the state-splitting proposal to Congress.[1]
The proposed states would be named Jefferson, North California, Silicon Valley, Central California, West California, and South California.
Background
Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution outlines the procedure for the admission of new U.S. States. It states:
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no
new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any
other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more
States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of
the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
There are two precedents: the splitting of Massachusetts into Maine and Massachusetts in 1820, and the splitting of Virginia into Virginia and West Virginia, which was admitted as a separate state in 1863.
Six Californias was introduced in December 2013 by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper.[2][3] He indicated that the initiative was motivated by the belief that
California is ungovernable as is with legislature unable to keep up on
issues in all the state's regions, especially in areas such as job
creation, education, affordable housing, and water and transportation
infrastructure.[4][5] Furthermore, he believes that the current state government is getting out of touch with the people of California.[6] According to Draper, splitting up the state would allow the resulting
new state governments to be closer to their people than the current
California state government.[4]
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen approved Draper to begin collecting petition signatures in February 2014.[7] The petition needed to submit at least 807,615 signatures of registered
California voters by July 18, 2014, to qualify as a November election ballot proposition.[4] As the petition deadline drew closer, Draper suggested that the
initiative would be postponed to 2016 (since the deadline to gather
enough signatures to qualify for the 2014 ballot was in June 2014).[8][9] On July 14, the petition organizer announced that the proposal received enough signatures, and submitted them to the California Secretary of State's office.[10] Once the signatures are verified, per California law, it will qualify for the November 2016 state ballot.
The proposal would then need the approval of voters in California, the Congress of the United States (per Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution), and possibly the California State Legislature.[4]
Measure details
Proposed states
Six Californias would divide the state's 58 counties among six new states: Jefferson (based on the historic State of Jefferson proposal), North California, Silicon Valley, Central California, West California, and South California.[4]
Jefferson
The state of Jefferson would be created from the far north part of California, bordering Oregon, and would consist of fourteen counties: Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Plumas, Siskiyou, Shasta, Tehama, and Trinity.[11] Unlike the historic State of Jefferson proposal, this new state will not include any territory from Oregon.
North California
The state of North California would be south of Jefferson spanning from the Pacific Ocean to Nevada. North California would consist of thirteen counties: Amador, El Dorado, Marin, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sierra, Solano, Sonoma, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba.[11]
Silicon Valley
The state of Silicon Valley would span the coastline from San Francisco to Monterey. It would consist of eight counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, San Benito, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey.[11]
Central California
The state of Central California would be between Silicon Valley and Nevada. It would consist of the
fourteen counties north of Los Angeles and south of Sacramento: Alpine, Calaveras, Fresno, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Mono, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare and Tuolumne.[11]
West California
The state of West California would be south of Silicon Valley and Central California, and west of San Bernardino County. It would consist of four counties: Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles and Ventura.[11]
South California
The state of South California would be made up of the southernmost part of the state. It would consist of five counties: Imperial, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego.[11]
State-splitting process and other procedures
The above division is not set in stone. The proposal allows a county
along one of the proposed new state borders to join an adjacent state
instead, subject to the approval of both that county's voters (via a
country ballot measure) and its Boards of Supervisors by November 15,
2017.[1]
A board of 24 commissioners would also be appointed to negotiate how
to divide California's existing assets and liabilities among the new
states. The initiative also explicitly states that the Governor of
California will be required to submit the state-splitting proposal to
Congress by January 1, 2018.[1]
In addition, California's charter counties would be allowed more power over municipal affairs that currently may
be controlled by city governments. This change is meant for the interim
period between the passing of the initiative and congressional approval
of the new states, but will remain in place even if Congress eventually
does not pass the state-splitting proposal.[1]
In final section of the initiative, "the official proponent of the
initiative" (Draper) is appointed as an "Agent of the State of
California" for the purpose of defending the proposal against legal
challenges.[12]
Analysis
The California Legislative Analyst's Office,
in a report that covered a wide variety of impacts, noted a wide
disparity of incomes and tax bases in the proposed states. The report
estimated that the state of Silicon Valley would have the nation's
highest per capita personal income (PCPI) whereas the state of Central California would have the nation's lowest PCPI.[1] The Huffington Post further published a map detailing how splitting California would result in these separate rich states and poor states.[13] This segregation has led to criticism that the proposal is merely a
money and political power grab for Silicon Valley and California's other
wealthy areas.[14]
Vikram Amar wrote a preliminary analysis of the difficulties that the Six
Californias measure would face. His piece, published by the law group
Justia, raised several constitutional questions on the proposal,
including whether the people of a U.S. state can authorize such a split
by popular initiative, and whether several new states can be validly
created under Article IV by splitting the territory of a single existing
state. Furthermore, Draper, as the appointed "Agent of the State of
California" for the purpose of defending the proposal in court, may not
actually be able to do so because of both the U.S. Supreme Court's
ruling in Hollingsworth v. Perry;
and Article II, Section 12, of the California Constitution that
prohibits any constitutional amendment that names a specific individual
to hold a particular office.[12] Amar also wrote that the measure might by blocked by the California courts on grounds that it is a revision to the California constitution instead of an amendment.
A proposed revision to the California constitution, a change that
substantially alters the state's basic governmental framework, must
originate from either the Legislature or a constitutional convention,
not from a ballot initiative.[15]
Opponents to Draper's Six Californias proposition argue that "if
passed, his proposal will set in motion the most bureaucratic, costly,
paper-pushing process in our history.... we’d spend years doing nothing
more than rewriting laws, duplicating government offices, and spending
billions of dollars unnecessarily."[16] For example, the new urban states of Silicon Valley and West California
may each have to construct several new prisons since most of the
current ones in California are located in the rural areas.[1]
A report identified a potential increase in tuition for current
Californians who attend a University of California campus, particularly
residents in California’s most northern state of Jefferson who would not
have a single UC Campus in the state. Based on the report’s findings,
Six Californias would result in over 60% of California students being
classified as out-of-state, costing Californian families $2.5 Billion
more per year.[17]
Another criticism of Six Californias is that it could increase the
lobbying industry six fold in California "to deal with the flood of open
questions", and would be a burden on California businesses due to the
increase of federal regulations regarding interstate commerce.[16][18]
California's current water and water rights issues will also have to be resolved among the new states. The California, Hetch Hetchy, Los Angeles, Mokelumne,
and other major aqueducts will cross the new state lines. This will
result in the new states of Silicon Valley and West California having to
heavily rely on importing water from the other states.[1]
The report by the California Legislative Analyst's Office
specifically names several other major issues that could be affected by
the decisions made by the leaders of each new state: crime, public
safety and gun control/ownership; economic development; the environment;
public employee pensions; laws related to marriage and family; taxes;
and transportation and other infrastructure.[1] Each new state could adopt different laws, either stricter or more
lenient, on those issues than what California currently has on the
books. These differing policies would in turn eventually result in
long-term demographic and economic changes, as various groups of people
will want to migrate to those new states with laws more favorable to
them.[1]
Thus, a couple of political experts counter that not all parties
needed to finalize the measure would approve: the voters as they would
not necessarily wish to break up the state with the cost of setting up
six new state governments and five new capitals, and Congress as they
may not want five more states in the mix.[4] Brendan Nyhan said that the idea would be unlikely to pass Congress due to disruption it would cause in the political balance of the U.S. Senate, as well as other sticking points.[7]
Splitting California will change the make up of both Congress and the Electoral College. Currently, both of California's U.S. Senate seats are held by Democrats. California, using a "winner takes all" approach, has also been a solid "blue state" for the past few decades; Republicans have not won California's electoral votes since 1988.
If the state is split, 12 Senators would then come from the six
Californias, as well as a division of California's current 55 electoral
votes. According to Vikram Amar,
based on current voting patterns, "we could expect four (from Silicon
Valley and West California) to consistently be Democrats, and four (from
Jefferson and Central California) to lean Republican, with the other
four (from Northern California and South California) harder to predict".[12] As a result, opponents say that the initiative is a thinly disguised
Republican power play aimed at diminishing the electoral votes that have
historically gone to Democrats in California.[19] In a survey of the California congressional delegation, The Hill found that the Democrats oppose the proposition, while the Republicans are generally divided.[20]
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