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California Supreme Court Blocks Ballot Measure to Split California Into Three States

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The California Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to block an a ballot initiative that would split the state into three separate states from the November ballot.

In a unanimous order, the six judges said they decided to remove the measure from the ballot “because significant questions have been raised regarding the proposition’s validity and because we conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election,” The Los Angeles Times reported.

“We conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election,” the court wrote.

According to The Huffington Post, the Planning and Conservation League, an environmental group based in Sacramento, California, filed a lawsuit in the state Supreme Court last week, arguing that the measure would amount to a revision of the California Constitution, and amendments to the state’s constitution would require a two-thirds vote approval from both chambers of the state’s legislature before the measure could go onto the ballot.

The Planning and Conservation League argued that the initiative was too serious of a proposal to be simply approved by a ballot measure, and could result in weaker environmental protections in the state, The Hill reports.

via Getty/CAL3

The initiative, known as “Cal 3,” proposed to divide California into three separate states: California, Northern California and Southern California, each with similar populations.

The measure was championed and funded by Tim Draper, a Bay area venture capitalist. Draper argued that California was ungovernable due to “poorly performing schools, crumbling infrastructure and a political system controlled by powerful special interests” and needed to be broken up into “three smaller, more manageable states.”

“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 told HuffPost on Wednesday. “Whether you agree or not with this initiative, this is not the way democracies are supposed to work,” he added

The Planning and Conservation League praised the court’s decision to block the initiative.

“Proposition 9 was a costly, flawed scheme that will waste billions of California taxpayer dollars, create chaos in public services including safeguarding our environment and literally eliminate the State of California ― all to satisfy the whims of one billionaire,” the group’s Executive Director, Howard Penn, said. “It would have dismantled the world’s 5th biggest economy without solving a single challenge facing Californians today.”

Fabian Nuñez, a member of the opposition group OneCalifornia Committee and a former speaker of the California Assembly, said the fact that the initiative was even placed on the ballot to begin with “gives direct democracy a bad name.”

“We are hopeful that Tim Draper will end his attempts to split up our state and use his resources to help California meet its challenges and become an even better place to live and work,” Nuñez said.


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