The decision deals a blow to affluent venture capitalist Tim Draper, who bankrolled the effort to divide the state and successfully collected enough signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot. | Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP Court blocks ballot initiative to divide California into three states

The California Supreme Court has pumped the brakes on a quixotic plan to split California into three, ruling that the state-sundering initiative should not appear on the November 2018 ballot.

The decision deals a blow to affluent venture capitalist Tim Draper, who bankrolled the effort to divide the state and successfully collected enough signatures to qualify the measure. He had previously tried and failed to qualify an initiative to break California into six distinct states.


An environmental group called the Planning and Conservation League had sued to block the measure, arguing that a change of that magnitude should have gone through the legislature before voters had the chance to weigh in.

Justices issued an en banc ruling noting that “significant questions” remained about “the proposition’s validity.”

“The potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election,” the ruling read.

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The ruling noted that time constraints compelled the justices to make a decision on the initiative’s potential placement on the ballot before resolving the underlying legal question.

“We’re delighted by the California Supreme Court’s order,” attorney Caryle Hall, who is representing the conservation league, told POLITICO. “It should not have been on the ballot; it has no possibility of qualifying as an appropriate matter that can be put on the ballot by initiative.”

Elected officials across California have repudiated Draper’s idea, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was quick to weigh in with kudos for the Supreme Court.

“You can’t buy California, @TimDraper,” he tweeted.

In an emailed statement, Draper denounced the ruling as a sign that the initiative process had been “corrupted,” likening the outcome to “what happens in third world countries” and saying his court foes had trampled on the will of voters.

“Apparently, the insiders are in cahoots and the establishment doesn’t want to find out how many people don’t like the way California is being governed. They are afraid to know the answer as to whether we need a fresh start here in California,” Draper said.

If the initiative does end up in the legislature’s hands, it would be unlikely to win approval there. Leaders in both parties have shown little interest in the logistically arduous and politically fraught process of breaking up the nation’s most populous state.

