Peter Schrag, writing in The Sacramento Bee, addresses an old question that's gained new frequency with the budget mess in the state capital: Is California ungovernable?
He also revisits another old argument: Should California be split into two or more smaller, more homogenous -- and presumably more manageable -- new states?
He correctly notes that, rather than the north-south divide that is usually the focus of split-the-state discussions, the real divide is between relatively wealthier, more liberal coastal California and the more conservative, less wealthy interior.
Schrag concludes: "Of course California is governable. No one suggests that the United States, despite a population eight times the size of California's, and notwithstanding an antiquated Senate filibuster rule, an archaic electoral college system and social and economic diversity even greater than ours, can't be governed."
I agree, but I can imagine that many here and on the coast are equally tantalized by the prospect of leaving the other behind.
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