Assembly OKs Bill to Divide State

The move to divide California into three states passed another hurdle Thursday when the Assembly decided to ask voters what they think.

After intense debate, the Assembly sent the legislation, authored by Assemblyman Stan Statham (R-Oak Run), to a questionable fate in the Senate. The bill would place a statewide non-binding advisory measure on the November, 1994, ballot.

It was the first legislation seeking to divide the state to be approved by the Assembly in more than 130 years.

Just before the 46-26 floor vote, Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria) announced: “The earthquake you hear is the sound of California splitting.”

Statham believes that the measure has a good chance of passage in the Senate because the upper house approved a 1965 bill to create two states. But that was a different era with a different cast of players.

During Thursday’s Assembly debate, an opponent of the measure, Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-Fullerton), said: “California is a great state. Sure, we have problems, but it would be wrong to give up on the state of California. We ought to provide a message that the state of California will work, and we are going to make it work.”

Statham responded: “You really can trust your constituents to make the right decision. After all, they elected you, didn’t they?

“The best way to resolve this issue is let the voters cast their votes at the polls. Let’s find out if the people of the state of California want it done.”

But residents would get the chance to vote on the idea only if the measure is approved by the Senate and signed by Gov. Pete Wilson.

A Wilson spokesman has said the governor is opposed to splitting the state.

“The governor feels the state’s greatest attribute is being diverse,” said spokesman J.P. Tremblay.

Statham said he had not discussed the matter with Wilson, but added: “I personally know Pete Wilson would not be against allowing the people of California to speak (on the issue if) he viewed the issue to be important enough.

If the three-state idea is approved by voters, the Legislature would have one year to develop and approve a division plan, which then would have to be approved by Congress. Both those steps would pose huge obstacles.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) supported the measure, which would split the state north of Sacramento and San Francisco, and in the Tehachapi Mountains between Bakersfield and Los Angeles.

“I believe the voters should be trusted to make that decision,” Brown said.

Included in the bill are provisions that all three states would have to be economically sound and that taxes could not be increased as a result of the division.

If the voters reject the three-state idea, Statham said, “the issue would be dead, and I would have nothing more to do with it.”

In 1859, both houses of the Legislature approved and the governor signed into law a bill to cut California into two states, but the effort was abandoned because of the Civil War.

In 1965, the state Senate voted 22 to 16 for legislation creating two states. The bill was sponsored by former Sen. Richard J. Dolwig (R-San Mateo), but it died in an Assembly committee.

In those days, rural Northern California senators wielded much more power at the expense of Southern California senators.

A former television news anchorman, Statham has been waging a campaign to split the state since he was elected in November, 1976.