A proposal to divide California into six states has received enough signatures to make the November 2016 ballot

A proposal to divide California into six states has received enough signatures to make the November 2016 ballot

As per the tradition created when West Virginia was created, it would be a simple matter for these six new states to be created if the President of the United States co-operated. Here's how Lincoln did it:

1. The creation of a new state from part of an old state requires the old state to approve.

2. Lincoln simply recognized a totally bogus government of Virginia.

3. The totally bogus government then gave West Virginia permission to secede and form a new state.

4. The same totally bogus government then became the government of West Virginia.

5. Mission accomplished.

In reality, the constitutionally and democratically elected government of Virginia did not approve of the secession, but Virginia was a slave state which had left the Union, while the bogus government opposed slavery, so Lincoln recognized them, bogus or not. The U.S. Congress supported this obviously illegal maneuver, since the remaining congress consisted of those people who opposed the legitimate government of Virginia, which had chosen the Confederacy.

The Supreme Court finally got around to reviewing the process in 1871, by which time the Civil War was long over. The jurists allowed the state of West Virginia to continue to exist, because ... well, because the government of West Virginia was already there and had served the Union faithfully, because there was no reason to change the fait accompli, and because nobody really gave a shit either way - by then the legitimately elected UNIONIST government of Virginia also approved the secession, thus fulfilling the requirement of the U.S. Constitution.

Don't expect President Obama to follow this precedent, because (1) he'd be impeached; (2) he wouldn't want to do it, because Democrats like having a 2-0 edge in California's senators; (3) it would have to be approved by the Congress, and I can't see the other states deciding that California should have ten more senators.

Here is a better analysis of the proposal from the point of view of a legal scholar.