The Two-State Solution: California Dreamin' Is Nothing New - #CalExit
This week, 166 years ago, voters in southern California approved a measure to separate from the state and form a new territory
This week, 166 years ago, voters in southern California approved a measure to separate from the state and form a new territory
Dividing California into two or more states has been discussed several times in recent years—State of Jefferson, Six Californias, Cal 3, and now a two-state proposal from Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher (R-3).
While there have been attempts at statewide ballot measures to divide California, the legislature referred just one to the ballot: the Pico Act of 1859. The legislation was named for state Assemblymember Andrés Pico (D) of Los Angeles County. According to historian William Henry Ellison, Pico viewed California as “too large and diversified for one state” and that “uniform legislation was unjust and ruinous to the south.” The California State Legislature agreed to place the question on the ballot, which Gov. John B. Weller (D) signed on April 18, 1859.
Voters in six southern counties of California—Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, and Tulare—decided on the ballot measure to grant consent for the southern counties to establish a separate government with the proposed name Territory of Colorado. The legislation stipulated that a two-thirds vote was needed to be considered approved. On Sept. 7, 1859, the proposal received 74.7% of the vote.
U.S. Sen. Milton Latham (D), writing to Congress on Jan. 12, 1860, said, “They [southern Californians] are an agricultural people, thinly scattered over a large extent of country. They complain that the taxes upon their land and cattle are ruinous—entirely disproportioned to the taxes collected in the mining regions; that the policy of the State…