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Showing posts with the label John Lindsay

New York City: The 51st State?

Norman Mailer (left) and Jimmy Breslin (right): would-be architects of the 51st state. American history is filled with failed, idealistic campaigns for office. It is also filled with failed, idealistic attempts to form new states. Most states, at least once in their histories, have seen proposals to split the states into two or more pieces. Texas and California have been the subjects of such proposals many times—in fact, a plan to split California into six states was advanced in 2014, but failed when proponents were caught submitting fraudulent petitions to inflate support for the measure. An attempt to split California into three states was shot down by the California Supreme Court in 2018. Splitting states sometimes works out. Kentucky and West Virginia were split from Virginia; Tennessee was split from North Carolina; Alabama was split from Georgia; and Maine was split from Massachusetts. The most recent partitioning of a state, however, was the creation of West Virgini