Troublemaker Draper’s latest plan a ‘real threat’

Troublemaker Tim Draper’s latest proposal to split California into three states has some appeal for Northerners.

That doesn’t mean it’s a smart idea. It’s impractical, a fantasy and doomed. But it does have an allure.

In November, Californians will vote on whether to split the state in thirds because the venture capitalist’s initiative qualified for the ballot last week. So this is potentially achievable, if highly remote.

The new “Northern California” would be the second-wealthiest state in the nation, just below Connecticut in per capita personal income, because of the San Francisco Bay Area, especially Silicon Valley.

There’d be fewer people unemployed and on public assistance than in the other two new states: Los Angeles-dominated “California” and weirdly drawn “Southern California.” There’d be less northern tax money spent on the safety net and more for universities, transportation, parks and other lifestyle goodies.

And “Northern California” would have the Golden Gate Bridge, redwoods, Napa-Sonoma wine country, Mount Shasta, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite Valley and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta — and more muscle to protect it all from southern water-grabbers.

The new “California” would include the coast from Santa Monica to Monterey, as well as the many thousands of L.A. homeless to deal with without Bay Area tax dollars.

Mono Lake would be in “Southern California” as would Mount Whitney and Fresno.

The legislative analyst says the state “would have below average income levels compared to the rest of the country.” That means less tax revenue. But it would need to pay for the highest share of Medi-Cal and welfare recipients among the three states.

The three states’ populations would be similar, ranging from 12 million to 14 million each. California would gain four U.S. Senate seats, so six senators total. Four would surely be Democrats, the other two probably Republican. There’d also be four more presidential electoral votes.

Congress and the president would need to approve it. That’s not going to happen while Republicans control Congress and there’s a President Trump. And even if Democrats were in control, would they tinker with the sweet deal they now have in this blue state?

The proposal also oozes with potential problems.

Would a Bay Area kid enrolling at UCLA pay out-of-state tuition? What about the UC system as a whole? And the state’s current debts — money owed on infrastructure bonds and unfunded liabilities for public employee retirements?

And this promises a bitter water war.

L.A. imports about 90 percent of its water from sources where people resent that. And Gov. Jerry Brown’s monstrous Delta tunnels? Forget it. Draper dismisses such talk. “Just set it up in compact,” he told me.

It took decades of costly court battles to settle California and Arizona’s fight over the Colorado River.

In 2000, Draper, a San Mateo County billionaire, sponsored an initiative to provide taxpayerfunded $4,000 vouchers for kids attending private schools. Voters overwhelmingly rejected it.

Four years ago, he tried to split California into six states, but that didn’t make the ballot.

Former state Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez gives the best reason for voting no this time: “It’s a real threat. We should be talking about the real issues of healthcare access, energy, homelessness.”

But if Draper ever wants to split the state in two at the Tehachapi Mountains ...