Editor, Times-Union:

Readers of the Times-Union may have heard about the Cal 3 initiative where voters in California will decide this coming November on whether to divide the state of California into three different states of Northern California, Southern California and a coastal California from Monterey County to Los Angeles County.

If the ballot measure is successful and survives legal challenges, the start of a process  that has been used three times in American history will begin: a new state being created from an existing state(s) based on Article 4 Section 3 of the U.S Constitution. The states of Kentucky (1792), Maine (1820) and West Virginia (1863) were formed in this manner. The full text of Article 4 Section 3 is below in bold letters:

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.

If the Cal 3 initiative is able to get the consent of the California State Legislature and the U.S. Congress, then Americans would see an additional two stars added to the U.S flag and four additional senators to the U.S Senate and the "possibility of a swing state" in the Electoral College.

There have been numerous proposals in California's history of splitting the state. The most serious one that actually made it to Congress was back in 1859. There are also other states that have had portions of them expressing interest in statehood since 1863, such as the western part of Maryland; Northeast Colorado; Michigan's Upper Peninsula; Chicago, Ill.; and Long Island, N.Y.; among others.

Such proposals should be given consideration if they are addressing real problems and irreconcilable differences between those areas and their respective states. The consent of the state legislatures should also always be achieved since the states do have legitimate jurisdiction over their borders. Once this step is achieved, Congress should give consideration to the matter as to ensure that a new state can adequately stand among the American union and refrain from using this process as a creative way of gerrymandering a state to tilt the overall balance in the U.S Senate in favor of one party over the other.

Cal 3 Ballot Initiative

• www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-split-three-states-20180612-story.html.

• www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-hasen-split-california-proposition-legal-problems-20180625-story.html .

• timesofsandiego.com/politics/2018/06/13/billionaires-initiative-to-split-california-into-3-states­-makes-it-to-november-ballot/

• www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-hasen-split-california-proposition-legal-problems-20180625-story.html

• cal3.com/

 

Readers will also find either online or at your local library these following sources of information worthwhile in understanding the process of how the new states are admitted to the American union.

1. How the States Got Their Shapes

2. How the States Got Their Shapes Too: The People Behind the Borderlines.

3. Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made lt.

Alexander Houze

Leesburg