How can new states and provinces be created?

I feel it has to do with a collective consciousness that originates with people that come to a conclusion that creating a new environment may be best for them from several different aspects such as financial, demographic,cultural, political standpoints etc. Usually these changes do not happen overnight, but as society we feel it does due to not following certain issues concerning it until the media so to speak brings into light.

Well, when it starts out as a territory it simply votes itself in to the fold. I think Puerto Rico is moving in that direction. As for splitting in two, West Virginia broke away from Virginia at the onset of the civil war. States don’t generally split that often.

In Northern California and Southern Oregon, there has been talk for years of splitting of and forming Jefferson State, because too much of the states taxes and attention go to the big cities, and not to those small town areas. Many also don’t like the liberal dominance of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
I will be retiring to this area, and I am hoping I can be a voice of reason in a jungle of chaos. I am also hoping to find a better metaphor than that.

In the US, to carve a state out of existing state territory, you need approval from the state, approval from the territory be separated from its current state, and also approval from Congress.

Approval from Congress is the real tough one because it means two more Senators and it means taking at least one Representative from some other State. (It’s not necessarily form the state being carved up. WIth respect to Jefferson that @filmfann mentioned, there may not be a big enough loss of population from California to cause California to lose a seat.

@zenvelo Doesn’t the President also need to rubber stamp it? I ask because I vaguely remember a vote in Puerto Rico during Clinton and it being reported that Clinton said he would go along with whatever the people decided. But, I don’t remember learning about it one way or the other in school.

Article IV, Section 3 of the US Constitution states:

“New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.”

So, states could split, combine, or some combination of the two but it would be a political nightmare.

@filmfann I’m guessing that those people don’t object to being supported by the tax bases of Los Angeles and San Francisco?

@SadieMartinPaul They aren’t. Of the tax money the Northern State pays, most doesn’t go toward paying for Northern State roads, schools, etc.