The only way you can do that is if Congress signs off on it.
Every other state has an incentive not to permit that, because then that state gets two senators of its own.
Congress has only ever permitted a state to split a single time – West Virginia from Virginia, during the American Civil War, where West Virginia was willing to side with the Union, and contained some militarily-important rail and water infrastructure.
Texas also negotiated the right to have the ability to split into five states if it wanted down the line at the time it joined, but I recall reading that it was considered to no longer be an exerciseable option after the American Civil War.
EDIT:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admission_to_the_Union
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1:
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.[4]
EDIT2: Correction; Kentucky was also split from Virginia and Maine from Massachusetts. The Kentucky split happened before the US Constitution was ratified. Maine was part of the Missouri Compromise, to keep slave and free states in balance when Missouri joined as a slave state.
Maine used to be part of Massachusetts until the Missouri compromise.
Tennessee split from North Carolina. Georgia split off Mississippi and Alabama
Tennessee split from North Carolina. Georgia split off Mississippi and Alabama
It’s like watching fecal amoeba undergo mitosis.
Creating new states from territory that nominally belonged to an existing state (in the sense of claiming everything west of their established territory) but was actually unexplored frontier was a little different than carving a chunk out of an existing state with fully-established borders after the fact.
No doubt it’s a bit different. But it was still splitting and both did have established western boundaries.
TN also almost split like VA in the civil war. They were the last to secede (doing so to protest Lincoln calling for state militia members to quell the rebellion). East TN (Knoxville region) was unionist whereas West TN (Memphis region) was rebellious. TN also supplied the most fighters to the union of any secessionist state.
They almost split because the east was mountainous and unfit for plantations, so the plantation owners that ran all the southern state legislatures shit on them endlessly, as is their wont.
East Tennessee had for long had quarrels with the rest of the state. The culture and economic differences caused great strife between the regions. But it had railroads vital to connect VA with the rest of the south without going around the mountains.
no one cares what that one dude in Sandwhich, Il thinks.
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Last I checked, Iroquois county had 9000 yes votes to secede. Good luck with that massive tax revenue base. Chicagoland’s 10 million plus residents will be happy to stop sending them money.
I saw that on the ballot in Madison County and thought there would be no way it would pass. It passed in all 7 counties that had the proposal in the ballot.
There’s no way the counties down here can be financially solvent without the northern half of the state.
People keep telling me not to worry. After seeing so many things that “would never happen” come to pass it is difficult to not take this seriously. Both mine and my wife’s retirement is solely based on our Illinois teacher pensions. I’m guessing those dissolve if this comes to pass? Do I move preemptively?
I wouldn’t think your state pension goes away since that’s based on your employment with the state, not what state you currently reside in. Now any financial support those counties were getting from the state would go away.
Honestly, if NYC voted to secede from the state, it would probably be pretty popular. Albany doesn’t even pretend to view us as anything more than a piggy bank at this point.
Lol. Let them.
Grafton NH 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Fuck it at this point. Won’t matter when you’re paying those 40% tariffs. Everyone will be poor but the already rich.
Good riddance. Now let them struggle with import/export procedures with the USA, and sudden absence of farming subsidies.
Think they are suceding from the state , not the US.
Just kick them out of the whole deal. No need to split potatoland into two potatolands.
But the USA decides what the states and territories are, so … they can’t just decide they’re a new state. That’s not how it works.
Whatever. As long as I can still buy weed.
I fully expect the US to balkanize eventually.
If the southern states are finally ejected, then whatever is left will be 10x stronger.
It was after reconstruction, when the south wasn’t able to give all their votes to their favorite sons in the senate that we finally started to develop as a country with things like the intercontinental railroad.
Ejecting the south would lead to a new golden age for the US.
It’s because of the infinite southern corruption hole that we put NASA in Alabama, where it basically collapsed into failure, and the superconducting-supercollider’s 50B dollars were swallowed by Texas because they wouldn’t let it be built in Illinois, then their contractors ate the rest of the money.
Russia should be against a balkanization, the South was the only thing holding the US back, without them we’re unstoppable.
Shoulda let Sherman continue his march and torch the whole thing down. Reconstruction was a mistake.
Then California splits into 20 states.
And DC becomes a state.
- DC
- Puerto Rico + US Virgin Islands form a Carribean US state
- Guam, American Samoa, Northern Marinara Islands form a Pacific US state
- Navajo nation (the largest native american nation with significant territories) forms a state
So you would have 19 new States from splitting California, and four extra ones to fix long overdue mistakes. Flag designers will get a major headache redesigning the flag with 73 stars…
I don’t know about the California’s. I would prioritise giving statehood to the peoples who previously did not have the right to representation even though they were within US territory and citizens.
I’d suspect the Navajo Nation wouldn’t want to cede their claim of nationhood for statehood
They’d get far more rights and proper political representation. Am I missing something?
They would be acknowledging they they won’t ever be treated as a full and independent country by doing so. They currently claim sovereignty and have special rights because of it, including the right to govern traditionally and to deny membership to their colonial oppressors
If they want statehood I’m happy to give it, but I’ve seen no indication they want it
Thanks for the explanation.
Seriously good idea. Most of them would still have more population than some of the potato fields with overblown grandeur calling themselves “States”.
Not the solution you think it is. It would be the rural Republican areas of California that would split off, meaning the magats would have an even stronger lock on the senate.
Lmfao. Let them.
And give them 2 more senators?
Well, the electoral college (assuming we can vote again) would be based on population. And based on by very small amount of research:
Blue Illinois: ~17-18 electoral votes
Red Illinois: ~3-4 electoral votes
The last time Illinois voted red was in 1988 for Bush.
Here is an estimate of the outcome from ChatGPT, if you’re into such things.
If Illinois were split into “Red Illinois” and “Blue Illinois,” it would likely be a boon for the Democratic side (the “Blues”) rather than the Republicans (the “Reds”). Here’s why:
1. Electoral Vote Distribution:
• Blue Illinois (urban and suburban areas, especially around Chicago) would retain most of the population and, therefore, the majority of Illinois’ current electoral votes.
• Red Illinois (primarily rural areas) would receive only a small number of electoral votes due to its lower population.
2. National Electoral Impact:
• Currently, Illinois’ electoral votes (all 21) reliably go to the Democratic candidate. If split, Blue Illinois would continue to deliver its substantial number of votes to Democrats.
• Red Illinois, with its few electoral votes, would be a small gain for Republicans but would not offset the significant Democratic advantage from Blue Illinois.
3. Practical Outcome:
• While Republicans might gain a small number of electoral votes from Red Illinois, Democrats would retain the larger share. This would effectively increase the Democratic advantage, as they would gain electoral votes from a smaller but reliable “blue” state and leave Republicans with only a minor gain.
In summary, a split would likely strengthen the Democratic position overall, giving them a solidly blue state (Blue Illinois) with substantial electoral power while only slightly increasing the Republican count.
Blue Illinois: ~17-18 electoral votes
Red Illinois: ~3-4 electoral votes
I always wondered about that. Why do states give all their electoral votes to one candidate? If a state has 20 votes and 51% of its population voted X, while 49% voted Y, wouldn’t it be fair to give 10 votes to X and 10 votes to Y, instead of 20 to X and nothing for Y?
So actually, Maine does not. It splits its votes. But that’s just the way the states decided to do it. Theoretically, that process could change now if a law passed.
Think of it this way - imagine nationally the election is close and how your state distributes EC votes determines the outcome. Let’s further say 70% of your citizens voted for candidate A, but for candidate A to win nationally they need all your EC votes. Given that your state laws should primarily be for the benefit of said state’s citizens, would you really want an outcome that 70% of your state’s voters don’t want? All it would take is one election where this determined the outcome before the voters would make it “winner takes all”.
It’s not about the House or the EC, it’s the Senate. 2 more reliably R senators makes things worse
That’s why you shouldn’t use AI. The Democratic advantage described doesn’t exist. It takes a small number of reliable EC votes from Democrats and gives them to Republicans.
And if every state did it, they wouldn’t get many total. But let’s be real, we’re never voting again. Next year the camps will start up.
They will never survive without Chicago. Rightwingers are the biggest welfare queens in America.
Need a balanced budget amendment.
I’m tired of all my money going to worthless red states where reading is considered unmasculine.
The irony of decrying conservative ignorance in the same comment as suggesting a “solution” based on conservative ignorance of the difference between a household or business and a government 🤦
They’re the ones who hate welfare spending, I’m just trying to help them follow their principles.
You should have to suffer the consequences of your beliefs, at least when you inflict them on others by force.
I know what you’re saying, and on the surface you’re right.
The problem is that, past that surface level justice, a shitload of people who have NOT agreed with or even consented to their nonsense would suffer from it just as much.
I lived in the south, man, I lived in most of the country, but the South… I do not see any hope for redemption there whatsoever.
100 years after losing the civil war they still had Jim Crow and the KKK, Hitler himself wrote about them as an inspiration in Mein Kampf, lynched returning black GIs, and even today they do everything they can to stop black people from voting, or minimizing the effect, when they aren’t just beating brown people for kicks. And they still consider themselves proud of their “Heritage”:
Personally, it’s us or them now.
Btw, the reason the south had a massive opioid epidemic? After the welfare reforms the 90s, they realized that meant white people welfare too, so they all applied for SSDI for “back pain” (came out of the SS budget which rich people didn’t care about), which came with free opioid pills they could sell for more money.
Until we fix them, we’re doomed as a country.
While they hate welfare spending, I bet they like farming subsidies a lot. They might be in for a surprise.
Hey, that’s not fare to welfare queens.
Grew up around central Illinois, the whole area blames Chicago for their problems while the true issue is all the auto manufacturing left in the 70-80s. If they formed their own state they’d be worse off than Mississippi. But hey, they’d get to keep Danville and East St. Louis, two of the worst cities in America.
If they formed their own state they’d be worse off than Mississippi
Hey now, no need for exaggeration! It takes decades if not centuries of extreme corruption and bigotry to get THAT awful. You don’t get a title fight as your first bout.
Ha, good luck.
Weirdly reassuring reminder of their incompetence, not gonna get complacent tho.
Only if we combine the Dakotas and New Illinois gets the senators from that.
Let’s split California into 3 while we’re at it.
If you split California into 3, 2 of them would be Republican. Unless you create the city states of SF and LA, then rest-California would be red.
Have the splits fall on the center of the cities then.
As is tradition
