What Would Six Californias Mean for Tourism?

PHOTO: How California would be broken up under "Six Californias" plan (courtesy Six Californias Facebook page)

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper wants to split California into six separate states.

And he appears to have the appropriate amount of signatures to at least move forward with the idea.

Draper is currently leading the "Six Californias" campaign. On Tuesday, the campaign tweeted that it had delivered 1.3 million signatures to the Sacramento County registrar of voters to place the initiative on the November 2016 ballot (a little over 800,000 is required).

#SixCalifornias announces the turn-in of 1.3 million signatures. 2016 here we come! pic.twitter.com/kJWqi9L7ac

— Six Californias (@SixCalifornias) July 15, 2014

According to the Associated Press, Draper actually turned in 44,000 signatures, but the rest are expected by the end of the week.

According to Draper, there are too many people in California (38.3 million, to be exact) for them all to be serviced by just one state government. He believes breaking California up into separate states would create stronger regional governance.

"We've got all of these constituents, 38 million of us, all trying to talk to the same state," Draper said during a news conference outside the registrar's office, per the Associated Press. "They're hearing noise coming from all different sides. There is not a concentrated effort to get jobs into the Central Valley because there are so many other issues around all of these different people."

There are plenty of critics, however. Beyond the fact that the “Silicon Valley” state where Draper is based would include most of the wealthier Bay Area region (leading some to believe he may have ulterior political or economical motives), some are wondering how it would affect the state’s tourism. After all, California is currently doing pretty well overall in that department considering the state itself boasts the world’s eighth-biggest economy, and splitting up the state could lead to less tourism income for certain counties.

Under the Six Californias plan, the “Silicon Valley,” West California” and “South California” states would figure to see a lot of tourist money coming in, considering they represent cities such as San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and San Diego.

On the other hand, “Jefferson” may struggle to bring in a lot of money via tourism. The Shasta Cascades area, which would be included in Jefferson, only brought in $929,000 in tourist spending in 2012, for instance. That’s compared to more than $25 million for the San Francisco Bay Area and nearly $23 million for Los Angeles County.

Then again, “The Jefferson Statehood Project” — independent of the Six Californias plan—was originally created to separate Northern California from the rest of California. The proponents of this project — and probably the Six Californias plan—would argue that they’ve been held down by the rules and regulations of the state, thus leading to poor economic numbers.

But according to Steve Maviglio, a Democratic political consultant and spokesman for OneCalifornia, “smaller isn’t necessarily more beautiful.” Maviglio noted that there are plenty of residents that complain about how certain city councils are run, let alone a regional or state governing body.

He contends that the Six Californias plan would actually hurt states like Jefferson even more.

“People come here for a California vacation; not a Jefferson vacation,” Maviglio said. “We’d have to basically split up a robust market into six pieces.”

“How would a small underfunded state afford a marketing campaign on a national basis?” he added. “The thought of everybody doing everything on their own…I don't think it helps the economy.”

California’s world-famous national parks would no longer be “California” national parks, either, Maviglio said. They would be split up or “dismantled,” potentially being labeled “Jefferson” or “Silicon Valley” national parks, which could hurt tourism.

There’s also the rail line from the Bay Area to L.A. How would you divide the expenses for this among the separate states?

And, of course, even if the measure passes in November 2016, there’s still the fact that Congress would have to support it, which has some lamenting (including the opposing OneCalifornia committee) that this is a waste of time and money (FYI, Draper has already spent nearly $2 million of his own money, according to the AP).

You can find a study of the proposal by the Legislative Analyst’s Office at lao.ca.gov.

Follow me on Twitter @RyanRudnansky