• New York bill proposes splitting the state into three independent districts
    43 replies, posted
https://nypost.com/2019/04/06/new-york-bill-proposes-splitting-empire-state-into-three-districts/?utm_source=reddit.com Secession is such an ugly word. Let’s call it a constitutional uncoupling. An amicable divorce would split New York state into three independent districts, each with its own governor and legislature — but would keep it one state for the federal government’s purposes — under a bill introduced by a Buffalo-area lawmaker. The plan would leave intact New York City’s five boroughs, with their 8.6 million residents, and even keep the name New York. The city’s immediate suburbs — Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland counties would be called “Montauk,” although their 4.2 million citizens would be free to vote for a different name. And the rest of the Empire State, all 53 upstate counties and their 7.1 million people, would go back to historical basics and become New Amsterdam. The exhaustive 24-page bill divvies up New York’s SUNY and CUNY colleges, its court and prison systems, and its roadways. It abolishes the Board of Regents, eliminates the state attorney general, and sweeps away thousands of state mandates that most counties must pay for with property taxes.
As someone from Buffalo, I fully support this. Not rule of Albany or rule of NYC. Rule of Buffalo and Rochester!
Albany nerd here, screw y'all. Us centrals/Adirondack's want nothing to do with western NY or NYC (although we like you westerners much more than the NYC people).
There only be one federal district (Washington D.C.) -that 3/4 of the area needs to become a new state-, and the nation's constitution or federal government is fine on seceding from statewide level e.x. West Virginia... as long its not nationwide level secession, then again is totally fine with most of all state's approving this.
I think the entirety of upstaters prefer each other over NYC. Legit, we could just throw them into the sea, and the state would be in a better place.
At the rate the Greenland ice melt is going the sea itself is gonna throw NYC into the sea.
Reminder that New York City is entirely unrepresentative of the rest of the state, despite making up almost half of its population. As a member of Orange County (riiiiiiiiight above NYC/Rockland), I'm in full support of this. NYC already functions like its own economic and legal zone with how many different laws there are in the city that don't apply anywhere else, and vice versa. In the same vein, it's insane that anything north and/or west of the Hudson Valley has to pay into the MTA on their state taxes, despite never using it. This proposal would be the best middle ground beyond making two entirely new states. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/58181/89e76d48-f722-4876-a49f-595a5aba529b/image.png
Ohh hey, same as the California split shit.
They're only talking about splitting the state government. There would be no change in the federal government like there would be in the California scenario.
Buffalinian here. If it gives the reds more power I'm agin' it.
“NYC already functions like its own economic and legal zone with how many different laws there are in the city that don't apply anywhere else, and vice versa.” Congrats, you learned that local/municipal governments exist...
Democrats respond to perceived unequal democratic power by getting out the vote. Republicans respond by changing the rules and rigging the game until they win. Huh.
But if someplace represents >50% of the population of a state couldn't it be said that the rural folks are the outliers?
Funny using "We" when you live in North Dakota and probably live in a rose tinted world that ignores how dependent the rest of the state is on the city.
But... Making up half the population is kinda extremely representative of the state?
Yes sorta but also completely no NYC issues are massively and entirely different than what NY issues might be
Maybe so but it still makes very little sense to make the claim that half the population of a state is somehow not representative of the state. Making up such an enormous proportion of the populace is still representative of that populace even if there are many outliers that differ.
Made dependent by NYC and Albany's shenanigans and openly screwing over attempts to revitalize the industry of the Great Lakes regions. What can be done with this current bill would allow the separate districts to work with their own problems without it coming in direct hindrance financially of others. Buffalo and Rochester need to be able to directly control their current issues, which tend to go ignored with how much funding is shifted in favor of keeping NYC's residents happy. As for having rose-tinted glasses, maybe. The reality of the matter though is such big cities are separated culturally and financially in their respective industries. NYC is not a rust belt town, and therefore does not suffer from the same shit that Buffalo and Rochester do. That alone is one of the major issues that distances us from them when it comes to discussing things in the political arena. WNY needs it's own governance to fight it's own issues, and we cannot do that when we are actively fending off NYC for funding from the combined state of NY.
You're missing the point entirely. That block of population is entirely contained in an extremely dense, extremely tiny area relative to the rest of the state. That half is extremely representative of that part of New York. Again, somebody living deep in the Bronx is entirely different relative to living in Ogdensburg. One could try to argue this for most cities in the US, but New York has such a massive disparity between NYC and the rest of the state that it's almost unreal. There's a reason I posted 2016's voting map - 17 of New York's 62 counties voted for Clinton - less than 30%, yet made up nearly 70 percent of New York's total votes for her. The remainder of the state is essentially overrun by the island, making it difficult for the rest of the state to feel heard on a larger level. Now, I'll admit, the 2016 election is a large disparity and was a strange one overall. But, looking at other non-incumbent elections historically, the difference can still be seen between New York and the rest of the state. Over the past hundred years, the only recent elections that didn't have the entire state painted red are 2008 and 2016. The last time a Republican non-incumbent won New York was 1980. Also, this works entirely in reverse. Nobody in the city wants Albany controlling the budgeting of the MTA, because nobody in Albany takes the fucking subway in NYC. They, for the most part, have zero clue what actually goes on day-to-day in the city. They don't live in those conditions and simply don't have to. This is also the same reason why the bill completely eliminates the Board of Regents - public schooling in NYC is entirely different from public schooling in the rest of the state in terms of class size, school conditions, teachers, etc. Things like this should be up to NYC itself to decide and handle, but are effectively limited by people over a hundred miles away who will never live under the rulings they put through. How about you actually get off your ass and win votes (with the luxury of not being fire hosed, lynched and beaten by the police) instead of trying to throw away the votes of anyone who disagrees with you? They do. Millions of votes, actually. It pales in comparison to the votes available in the 300 square miles of NYC. Their voices would still be heard at a federal level, which is what matters most. Really, all my previous bitching is for nothing under this bill. What this changes is the votes mattering at a state level. As it stands now, as mentioned previously, NYC is already receiving special treatment when it comes to state laws. A great example is the minimum wage increase rollout. NYC is already at $15 an hour for larger businesses and will be for smaller businesses by the end of the year. The rest of the state? We get $12.50 by 2020, and that's it. We then have to wait for the state to decide when it feels like we deserve their grace to be given $15 an hour.
Except it's not representative of the populace of the state, it's representative of the city. NYC is so dense that they can almost unilaterally make decisions affecting the entire state, regardless of what the rest of the state votes for. I think it's reasonable to want to make decisions for the place that you live in, and if you live in NY but not in NYC, then other people are effectively making decisions for your area and there is nothing you can do to stop it. People should have more power when it comes to making decisions for their own locality. What makes sense for the city might not make sense for the rest of the state, but as it stands, it's an all in/all out situation because NYC has near complete unchecked power over areas they are not even near, so if you are not in NYC, you have no say and are just along for the ride. I can't say that the proposed solution is the right path to take, but cities exerting political influence well beyond their borders, stomping on the desires of the rest of the state, is an issue and deserves addressing. (This can go both ways, also) https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1383/70c6dfcb-b8e2-4f5d-ae76-da0bc6cde7dd/image.png
This "we" again in the very reply to the post calling you out for using it. You live hundreds of miles from NY state, "we" does not include you unless you've invented a teleportation machine that runs off of innawoods moonshine.
They take up like <5% of the landmass and control 50% of the vote their issues in no way represent everyone elses issues at all This argument only works when talking about the entire country. This is a state, way different.
You'd need to get rid of the electoral college before looking into actions like this, otherwise you just get a tyranny of the minority.
This doesn’t change anything on the federal level - but rather makes changes on the state level. the existence or non existence of the ec doesn’t really factor in this
Honestly, splitting up states into cities and rural areas would be the best thing for actual representation of the populations of each district. It's just that when the main drive for doing this is short-term political gain for specific parties, that's when things get real shitty real quick. If American politics were stable and not entirely polarized then I'd be all for this kind of thing, but when one side is actively subverting the idea of democracy and individual self-determination, I have a good reason to be skeptical towards this kind of thing. Imagine if this kind of thing caught on and suddenly the city-state of Wichita became a fundie christian theocracy That's the reality of what can happen with this kind of shit. Not even hyperbole.
Since when does landmass represent the population though? I'm not saying that the other half of the people are not representative of the population. I'm just saying that half the population is literally rerepresentative of the population because statistically, it is.
Statistically yes, politically not so much. You might say this is a limitation of a mass democracy of scale. 'Landmass' matters because local government is how local people and issues are organized and heard, balancing them is important if everyone is going to be governed by the same state and union. This is why something like EC reform must be approached carefully.
No one, not even New York, is arguing that this is something all states should embrace. And several users already in this thread have specifically stated that New York and regard to NYC is a very unique situation where this could apply.
Washington should do this
Seems like a rather unnecessary solution. Why not just institute a different system of local government? Instead of the state itself financing basic maintenance of infrastructure (which will always result in NYC being the only functioning place while everything falls apart), why not have a system more similar to the one we use here, where such things are handled on a municipal level (seeing that municipalities aren't really a thing in the US, I guess this would be done at a county level), while the major/strategic projects are funded by the state. There are problems, but certainly better than now as I can see. Then on the other hand American law is notoriously inflexible, such a change would never be allowed. Only bandaid solutions. If such things go on, the small problems like this will pile up until something very very bad occurs...
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