Cal 3 was a proposal to split the U.S. state of California into three states. It was launched in August 2017 by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper, who led the effort to have it originally qualify on the November 2018 state ballot as Proposition 9, officially the Division of California into Three States initiative. Proponents of the proposal argued that dividing California into three states would provide fairer and more responsive governance for large regions outside of California’s major cities. In July 2018, the Supreme Court of California pulled it from the ballot for further state constitutional review. Draper officially stopped pushing for the measure soon after. On 12 September 2018, the court permanently removed the measure from all future ballots.
The Cal 3 proposal would not have legally split the state immediately; the division would have occurred only if and when the U.S. Congress consented to admit the new states to the Union per Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Rather, the measure would have established procedures within the state government for the proposed split.
There were key procedural differences between the Cal 3 initiative and Draper's previous Six Californias plan, which failed to get enough signatures to qualify for the 2014 ballot. Among the differences, Cal 3 was an initiative to change a California statute, which required fewer petition signatures to qualify for the ballot than a proposed state constitutional amendment like the Six Californias plan. Also, language in the Cal 3 initiative was written so that if it was approved by the voters, the legislative consent required by Section 3 of Article IV "is given by the people" instead of directly by the California State Legislature.
As with his previous Six Californias plan, Draper and other proponents of Cal 3 said that the state is too large and ungovernable, and splitting California would produce smaller and more efficient state governments. Similarly to the previous plan, opponents said that such a split would be an unnecessary use of money and resources.
Background
California history
California has been the subject of more than 220 proposals to divide it into multiple states since its admission to the union in 1850, including at least 27 significant proposals in the first 150 years of statehood.
Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper launched Six Californias, a proposed initiative to split California into six states, in December 2013. It failed to obtain sufficient signatures to qualify as a California ballot measure for the 2016 state elections. He spent more than $5 million to try to qualify the proposition for the ballot, including nearly $450,000 for political consultants.
Federal precedents
Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution outlines the procedure for the admission of new U.S. states. It reads:
There are several precedents for the creation of new states out of pre-existing ones. Note that the pre-existing state does not disappear but simply gets smaller when the new state is admitted. The original state is not renamed or re-admitted, since it never leaves the union. Congress addresses only the question of admitting the new state.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky was admitted in 1792. It was created from the western territory of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Virginia legislature had already approved release of the land when the old constitution was still in effect (1781-1789). But as the Congress had not acted before the new constitution was enacted, it passed the bill of consent again as a matter of course. North Carolina ceded its western territory to the United States, as the Southwest Territory. The Congress subsequently created it the State of Tennessee in 1796. The State of Georgia likewise ceded the western two-thirds of its post-1783 territory, part of which was disputed with the Spanish Colony of Florida until 1795. That territory was subsequently split in half, with the western portion created the State of Mississippi in 1817 and the eastern portion created the State of Alabama in 1819. Both states and the State of Louisiana (1812) were expanded when the United States acquired Florida from Spain in 1821, and divided the western half of the Florida Panhandle between the three.
One instance was related to slavery: