Can the U.S. Survive Three Californias?

Sometimes it feels like the United States can barely survive one California, what with some of the insane legislative proposals and victories we see in the Golden State. But while the left coast is busy legalizing illegal immigration, criminalizing the Second Amendment, and filing lawsuit after lawsuit against the Trump administration, at least one billionaire thinks what America really needs…is three times the fun! That’s why Tim Draper is collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that would break California into three separate states…and this week he got one step closer to making his dream a reality.

The plan, which would divide the state into segments including the area north of San Francisco as one state, a coastal region extending south to Los Angeles as another, and everywhere south and east of those as the third, cleared its first legal hurdle on Monday. Now Draper can begin gathering the 500,000+ signatures he will need to get his proposal on the 2018 ballot. Draper, who made his money from venture capitalism, said in his measure that the “political representation of California’s diverse population and economies has rendered the state nearly ungovernable.”

“The citizens of the whole state would be better served by three smaller state governments while preserving the historical boundaries of the various counties, cities and towns,” Draper wrote.

This isn’t the first time the billionaire has proposed such a slice-up. In 2014, he launched an unsuccessful $4.5 million campaign to split California into six separate states. Now, perhaps realizing that he was a little too ambitious the first time around, he’s aiming to cut that proposal in half. It remains to be seen, however, if California voters are any more interested in this idea than they were his last.

“No one can argue that California’s government is doing a good job governing or educating or building infrastructure for its people,” Draper told The New York Times. “And it doesn’t matter which party is in place.”

Even if Draper were to pull off a miracle, get the initiative on the ballot, and convince a majority of Californians to vote for it, it would not necessarily be a done deal. The measure would still have to be approved by the state legislature, and then the U.S. Congress. The chances of all of that happening? Well, let’s just say they’re slim.