An interesting, albeit daunting, prospect has recently received some momentum in Southern California–one that would make several of its counties its own state.

(Christian Science Monitor) Thirteen mostly conservative California counties would break away to create a 51st state known as South California under a proposal by an elected official that would have to clear major hurdles to succeed.

Republican Jeff Stone has asked fellow members of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors to support a motion to bring together officials from the 13 counties to discuss the idea.

A vote on the proposed meeting is scheduled for Tuesday.

Stone said California is too big to govern, a situation that has led the state to raid local government coffers because of runaway spending. He knows it will be a challenge to create another state but doesn’t believe it’s an impossible task.

There has been talk for years about the condition of California, and how it is basically three states divided by geography as well as culture and political affiliation. There is the northern, democratic-socialist part; the central, agrarian-capitalist part; and the southern, entertainment-capitalist part. Due to certain arrangements and population structures, the democratic-socialist part outweighs the other two parts when it comes to any majority.

As such, the motion to break up the behemoth is a welcomed initiative to all who might feel disenfranchised by the current system. The move would essentially combine the most conservative and agrarian-based counties and leave the coastal and service-based counties by themselves.

Not surprisingly, the move has been criticized. As the Monitor reports:

Gil Duran, a spokesman for California Gov. Jerry Brown, said Stone’s proposal is “a supremely ridiculous waste of everybody’s time.”

“If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there’s a place called Arizona,” Duran told the newspaper.

And certainly, moving to another state might make sense for some. But one wonders why a group of people should move at all if their homes are built and communities have developed around their current location. Why should California persist as a top-heavy juggernaut when it is clear that it isn’t working the way it is now? Perhaps breaking up the state is just the change that would spur a little more responsibility in Sacramento.

And, if it is, one might wonder, why stop at just 51 states? Why shouldn’t all the states break up into two. Such a practice would doubtless increase competition between state governments, eager to entice residents, and possibly a little more autarchy for those residents.