If Jefferson had had his way, the 163,695-square mile landmass that is the state of California would have consisted of five equilateral rectangles with no meandering curves or unexpected projections.
We will never know if all of Ventura County would have fit in one of his Golden State squares, since Jefferson's proposal never gained much traction, but we do know that Ventura County farmers would not have been able to realize $1 billion yearly from local water sources alone.
Are you smarter than a third grader?
Even though Southern California needed Northern California (at least, its water) when the state Legislature put division to a vote in 1859, 75 percent of Southern California voters, convinced that they were being ignored and unfairly taxed by state legislators, favored making their dry and sunny neck of the woods a new state.
Fortunately, the Civil War seriously distracted the powers that be in Washington and nothing came of So Cal's drive to divide.
Yet, since California acquired statehood in 1850, there have been at least 27 attempts to cleave America's most populous state. Californians got most serious about splitting up in 1941, when Lassen, Modoc, Siskiyou and Del Norte counties in Northern California got the urge to merge with Curry County in southern Oregon. The spanking new state was to bear the name of our third president.
Their reason for secession was reflected in the official Seal of the Great State of Jefferson. The founding fathers of Jefferson, convinced that an abundance of copper, gold and silver, dense forests and unparalleled fishing would enable their state to become "self sustainable," chose a gold miner's pan with two Xs painted in the center to denote being "double crossed" by both Sacramento and Salem.
Point your browser to http://www.jeffersonstate.com to hear from those still patiently waiting for Jefferson, (the current incarnation incorporates seven Oregon and 12 California counties) to become our 51st state.
Quarrels over politics, religion, culture and natural resources resulted in state boundaries as jagged as a leaf's edge. For example, the 49th parallel was chosen as the northern border of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana to ensure access to the Great Lakes.
Although most people associate the Mason-Dixon Line with the War between the States, it was employed to settle the clash between the British colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania/Delaware over a charter that placed the booming Philadelphia within Maryland's borders.
If, after the 14-member California Citizens Redistricting Commission (http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/) sets new boundaries for the congressional, state Senate, state Assembly and state Board of Equalization districts, and Simi Valley, Moorpark or Thousand Oaks ends up voting with Los Angeles County, the dislocated municipality, too, might feel — 250 years later — Philadelphia's pain.
While John Q. Public has only one criterion — what's best for me — the commission is bound by six guiding principles: equal population, compliance with the U.S. Voting Rights Act, contiguity, communities of interest, compactness and, where possible, locating two Assembly districts in one Senate district. Note that these criteria are also prioritized.
Since equal population comes first — it's all about the math. An Assembly district is limited to 465,674, Senate district to 931, 349 and congressional district to 702,905.
The population of Ventura County, as of 2010, is 823,318, which means not only will it be mathematically impossible to gather all 10 cities into a single congressional district but it will also be mathematically impossible for state Assembly districts not to spill over as well.
As if the commission's redistricting assignment weren't complicated enough if merely confined to Ventura County — there are 58 counties in California and all are bellowing for the commission's attention and bawling to stay intact.
The ballot results of the Voters First Act of 2008 (passed by 50.83 percent) and California Congressional Redistricting Initiative of 2010 (passed by 61.3 percent) indicate that a majority agrees that the blatant gerrymandering, political stagnation and lack of competition that characterized Golden State politics had to go. The last straw for voters was the Democratic-controlled Legislature penciling in districts that protected all incumbents in 2001.
While not everybody will be happy after July 28, (the commission's deadline), we can trust that the commission, after weighing our polite and persuasive feedback, will have done its level best to group California's voting communities by geography, ethnicity and economic interests.
Moreover, we can be thankful that commission members are not folks who "allow" — no, make that — "demand" that voting records and party registration shape the new maps.
Only Thomas Jefferson would insist that California consist of five equilateral rectangles with no meandering curves or unexpected projections. Just think, had he had his way with the rest of these United States, none of us would be able to recognize states by shape.
They would all look the same.