So Cal’s Taxation Without Representation

What is the single largest block of United States voters to have no representation in the United States Senate?  If you guessed the District of Columbia you are not even a little bit close.  Look around you because it’s us.

California obviously functions as two separate states.  The No Cals hate us.  They want to cut off our water supply.  They hate our nice local teams.  They root for those godawful dog-kicking bike-stealing lying cheating Giants.  And they have both of our U.S. Senators.  Feinstein and Boxer care more about Afghanistan than they care about us So Cals.

I thought it might be interesting to hypothetically break up several divisible states, throw in D.C.,  and confirm my suspicion that So Cal is the largest  no-Senator reserve of tax-paying Americans.  Texas could be divided between its Golden Triangle and the West Texas plains, Illinois could be divided between the urban northern Cub and White Sox fans and the rural southern Cardinal fans.  New York has the City and Outstate, and Florida has distinctive demographics north and south.

But hardly any number crunching is really necessary.  There are 24 million So Cals and if we broke up the state Southern California alone would be the second largest U.S. state a whisper behind Texas.  D.C.’s 600k does not make our radar.  Here’s the top five states by population now:

1.  California 37m

2.  Texas 24m

3.  New York 19m

4.  Florida 18m

5.  Illinois 13m

If we broke up California, both halves would make the new top five:

1.  Texas 24m

2.  Southern California 23m

3.  New York 19m

4.  Florida 18m

5.  Northern California 14m

And here’s a bizarre factoid for Orange Countians.  There are 3.1m of us here in the O.C., so if we were a state we would rank just between Connecticut and Iowa and there would be twenty-one states with smaller populations — all of whom now get two senators a piece.

Where’s my tea bag?