The California Supreme Court has removed California Proposition 9, or the California Three States Initiative, from the November 2018 general elections ballot.

The initiative was removed from the ballot after a unanimous order, with the court asking for more arguments before deciding whether to place Prop. 9 on the 2020 ballot or strike it down permanently.

“The state of California is a major force in the country and in the world,” said City Councilmember Kriss Worthington. “If we were stupid enough to split ourselves into parts, we wouldn’t have the ability to have consistent environmental policies or responsible tax policies. Many of the best policies of the state of California would be undermined.”

For context, Prop. 9 sought to split California into 3 new states. Proposition developer and venture capitalist Tim Draper argued that the state has become much too large to efficiently govern, and said he believed its division would be productive. The proposition argues for the division of California into Northern California, California and Southern California.

The order was unanimous primarily because of concern that the proposition was too harmful and its premise too questionable, according to a report by SFGate. The California Supreme Court judges felt that the disadvantages of delaying voting on the proposition were less than of voting on it this year.

“What’s rare is for the court to take an initiative off the ballot,” said Ted Lempert, a political science lecturer at UC Berkeley. “It makes sense. … This initiative was so dramatic. It would not have just changed the constitution, but also eliminated it.”

Lempert added that if eventually passed, the proposition would have major repercussions for California infrastructure and would be expensive to institute. The proposition would also need to receive congressional and presidential approval before being ratified, although it did accrue the requisite number of signatures to be placed on the ballot.

Contact Jasmine Sheena at [email protected].