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Comment by masonic | Hacker News Reader

  the imbalance between what California contributes vs receivers

Do you have a firsthand source for that, or are you just quoting unsupported media quotes? The one study on that topic that I've seen omitted a lot of Federal spending in CA, such as transfer payments, military personnel, CA's share of defense spending, etc.

Remember that CA has had a lot of power in Congress under Democrats, including two senior Senators and the Speaker of the House twice.

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Every state gets two senators and the one that's served the longest is called the "senior" senator and the other the "junior". By definition a state can't have two senior senators.

A charitable interpretation would be to note that as of the 114th Congress, both California's senators have high seniority, which is how senate rank and privileges are determined.

Boxer's retirement leaves CA in the 115th Congress with Feinstein, 8th, and Harris, 97th.

http://www.periodicalpress.senate.gov/seniority/

That plus each CA senator represents over 18 million people as a contrast to Wyoming's senators which represent a hair over 284,000 people each.

"A lot of power"

2/50 senators = 4%

55/538 electoral votes = 10.2%

Compared to:

Population = 13% of US

GDP = 15% of US

So splitting California into two or more states would go a long way to solving the issue?

That won't work because of water rights.

Why is this not a federal issue anyway? How many watersheds extend across state/national lines?

Northern CA sends a lot of its water to Southern CA. The Owens Valley is where the LA gets most of its water. There are water deals between different states. San Diego gets the majority of its water from the Colorado River. Seven states have agreements on how much water they can take from the Colorado River.

Every state gets two senators.

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