52 stars? A Northern California, Southern California, and California initiative

[View this email in your browser]( [Ballotpedia](   [Facebook](   [Twitter](   [The Daily Brew]( The Six Californias initiative, now with 50% less states  Tim Draper, a venture capitalist, is collecting signatures for an initiative seeking to divide California into three states: California, Northern California, and Southern California. Specifically, the California Three States Initiative would task the governor with asking Congress to divide the state of California into three states. Draper first proposed breaking the state into multiple states in 2013. He called his first plan Six Californias, which, as the name suggests, would have divided the state into six states. Draper contributed $5.27 million to the campaign, which collected 752,685 valid signatures for the initiative—about 55,000 short of the 807,615 required. With Draper’s proposal to divide California into three states, he needs to collect 365,880 valid signatures. Since California’s signature requirement is based on the total number of votes cast for the office of the governor, this year less than half of the number of valid signatures that he collected for Six Californias are required to get the Three States Initiative on the ballot. The signature deadline for the initiative is April 23, 2018. On December 21, 2017, the initiative campaign reported having collected 25 percent of the required signatures. [Three states] Under the Three States Initiative, how would the three states have voted in the past two presidential elections? Democratic candidates would have won the new state of California and Northern California with at least 65 percent of the vote. Southern California had smaller margins, giving Obama a 0.63-margin plurality, but not a majority, in 2012 and Clinton 1.6 percentage points above 50 percent and 9.71 percentage points above Trump in 2016. [2012] [2016] [Learn more]( Random drawing for VA House District 94 scheduled for tomorrow  On December 29, 2017, State Board of Elections Chairman James Alcorn announced that the drawing to decide control of the Virginia House District 94 seat would be held on January 4, 2018, at 11:00 AM ET unless a court intervened before then. The drawing will randomly decide whether Shelly Simonds (D) or Delegate David Yancey (R) won the District 94 election, where both candidates received 11,608 votes. Simonds filed a lawsuit over a previously disqualified ballot that a panel of judges ruled should have counted for Yancey. Her suit has not been heard in court yet. With the results of the races in Districts 28 and 94 still pending, partisan control of the Virginia House of Delegates is unknown for the 2018 session. The chamber is set to convene on January 10, 2018. A court challenge of the District 28 results (where voting irregularities may have affected the outcome) is set for January 5. Going into the hearing, Republican Robert Thomas Jr. holds a lead of 73 votes over Democrat Joshua Cole. Democrats are hoping to have the court order a new election to correct for the irregularities, while Republicans hope the judge will let the election results stand. [Learn more]( → This day in history: January 3, 1961 Fifty-seven years ago, after months of an increasingly deteriorating relationship, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) issued a statement terminating diplomatic relations With Cuba. “There is a limit to what the United States in self-respect can endure. That limit has now been reached. Our friendship for the Cuban people is not affected. It is my hope and my conviction that in the not too distant future it will be possible for the historic friendship between us once again to find its reflection in normal relations of every sort. Meanwhile, our sympathy goes out to the people of Cuba now suffering under the yoke of a dictator.” Last year, President Donald Trump (R) signed a presidential memorandum outlining new restrictions on travel to Cuba and limiting the ability of American companies to do business with Cuban companies that fund the communist country’s military and intelligence agencies. The Trump administration kept in place former President Barack Obama’s (D) decision to end the "wet foot, dry foot" policy. The policy allowed Cuban migrants who made it to the U.S. to stay in the country, instead of being sent back to Cuba. The administration also decided to keep the U.S. embassy in Havana open and continue U.S.-Cuba commercial flights. [Learn about the major events and policy positions of the Trump administration on Cuba]( Ballotpedia depends on the support of our readers. The Lucy Burns Institute, publisher of Ballotpedia, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All donations are tax deductible to the extent of the law. Donations to the Lucy Burns Institute or Ballotpedia do not support any candidates or campaigns. [Donate Securely Online]( Decide which emails you want from Ballotpedia. [Unsubscribe]( or [adjust your preferences]( →   [Facebook](   [Twitter](