Is the idea dead? I’ve started a series over at @Ricochet to analyze what the six new states would really look like:

In my view, in making his case for breaking up the now-unwieldy state, Draper was really reiterating the argument for federalism itself, that goes back to the Founding and the creation of a republic of thirteen states from the original colonies. Part of the idea was as an integral aspect of the general idea of separation of powers, but a very large part of it was that they would be incubators for new ideas of governance; in Brandeis’s famous words, the states would be “laboratories of democracy.” Based on what I’ve seen of his explanation for it, Draper sees a need for the various regions of California to be given a much broader range to experiment than currently availed them by rule from the Bay area and Los Angeles, via Sacramento.

I suspect that if you scratch many of those who object to a breakup of California, you’d find underneath someone who would like to get rid of the Electoral College and directly elect the president. Such a person, in fact would likely not grieve the loss of the entire concept of a state, a level of government they find archaic and redundant, and a hindrance to beneficent majority rule from Washington itself. To put it another way, if you are a federalist, the argument for a California split is pretty much the same as that for having states in general. If you oppose it, it’s because you see it as a camel’s nose under the tent for more, rather than fewer states, as others (e.g., Illinois) decide that they are too large as well. For them, this is an idea that goes the wrong direction, “against the tide of history,” the Progressive project that has been going on for a century to dismantle the precepts of the original republican Constitution, starting with the direct election of senators.

I hope you’ll find it interesting.

[Update a while later]

I’ve started the series with Jefferson.