Any Which Way He Can : Break the nation’s largest state into three smaller states? Huh?

Last week California Assemblyman Stan Statham (R-Oak Run) announced that he will run for lieutenant governor in 1994. If that strikes you as less than big news, we’re not surprised. Statham has been in the Legislature 17 years, but is little known outside his 2nd District, which covers a handful of rural counties from the Oregon border to Chico. But maybe this description of him will bring a spark of recognition:

He’s the Northern California politician behind the latest move to break up the nation’s largest state into three smaller states. And he’s so serious about his mission that he’ll give up a safe Assembly seat to carry his break-up-California message to voters from Eureka to El Centro.

A native of Redding, Statham says he has become increasingly frustrated over the last few years not just with the Legislature, but even with his own Republican caucus. A GOP moderate, Statham is weary at constantly being outvoted within his own party by ardent right-wingers from Southern California. He has concluded that California, as it now exists, can’t be run by a state government that is “gridlocked and dysfunctional.” His solution would be to create three new states, each with its own government and a viable tax base to support it. South California would be the seven counties south of the Tehachapi Mountains. Central California would be the 22 counties from Santa Barbara to San Francisco, and inland to Sacramento. North California would be most everything north of the Golden Gate.

To put his plan into operation, Statham introduced Assembly Bill 3, which would put the question of three Californias on the November, 1994, ballot as a non-binding advisory measure. It has passed the Assembly and is pending before the Senate, where its chances are not considered good. That is why Statham decided to launch his statewide candidacy. If state voters won’t get a chance to express their views on breaking up California, Statham figures he can give them the next best thing: a chance to vote for a politician whose whole candidacy is based on a promise to do just that. Frankly, that’s a better way to go than AB3.

While we share Statham’s frustration with Sacramento gridlock, breaking California into three states is not the answer. For a start, a state breakup would raise many complex financial and legal questions that would have to be answered before any responsible person could endorse the plan. And we doubt whether Congress, already a hotbed of anti-California sentiment, would be eager to increase this region’s clout by granting us four new Senators and possibly even new seats in the House.

But if Statham believes in this issue as much as he claims, then you have to admire his gumption at taking it to the voters any which way he can.