Like Glenn Reynolds, I’m sure that there are all sorts of reasons that argue against this Volokh Conspiracy commenter’s position that if we do allow states to go bankrupt then we should also require them to lose their state status and be bounced back down to territorial status again. But the idea of taking say, California, yanking it out of statehood for ten years… then readmitting it as the three or so states that it should be appeals.
Hoo, boy, yes, it appeals.
Moe Lane
PS: Texas should also probably be about three states or so, but Texas is also not in imminent danger of default.
Hey, I don’t care what happens to California. The place is dead to me.
Chop up Texas into 3 states? Now, you know better than that. Don’t mess with Texas.
So, instead of one liberal state liberal senators, we would have 3 liberal states with 6 senators? I prefer my method of having all the right thinking people leave the state and move to lowly populated liberal bastions. Have a 100,000 people move to VT. Bam two new conservative senators. Another 100,000 to Rhoad Island, bam another 2. 500,000 to Delaware. Bam, two more.
I say give up on CA and steal their lunch money.
Nah, you wouldn’t have three liberal states. The most likely scenario would result in one liberal state, Coastal California, with the Bay Area, )already represented by Boxer and Feinstein).
A second, Northern California, comprised of the Central Valley and Sierras, which would almost certainly be conservative and Republican.
And a third, Southern California, which would have the LA basin, the Inland Empire, and San Diego, which would lean Democratic, but have a chance at electing conservative, depending on turnout and candidate appeal.
There’s a discussion of the natural cultural and geographic dividing lines here:
http://www.phrelin.com/3Cals/Rationale.htm
And, as a non-nihilist, non-bomb-throwing Texas nationalist, I disagree that Texas should be “about three states or so.” Texas ought to be an independent Republic with the (notional) 1845 borders*. Since the result would interdict Interstates 10, 20, 30, 40, 60**, 70, and 80, a modest toll combined with a small export duty on petroleum products and derivatives would keep our finances nicely in the black.
Regards,
Ric
* which includes New Mexico east of the Rio Grande, almost half of Colorado, the Oklahoma Panhandle, and a bit of Wyoming. For that territory Texas got $10 million. We could repay it; even with inflation it only comes to about the combined budgets of the DFW Metroplex.
** There is no Interstate 50.
There’s no Interstate 60 either, though there is a 44 and 64 and 66 and 68. There’s no Interstate 50 or 60 because they’d be too close to US 50 and 60 to avoid confusion. There was a movie named Interstate 60, though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_60
As part of the terms of its admission to the United States, Congress has already given Texas permission to subdivide into as many as four additional states if it decides to do so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Annexation#Options_for_the_formation_of_new_states
Any state legislature can petition Congress to subdivide the state…that’s what happened with West Virginia in 1863, and almost happened with Eastern Tennessee about the same time…