Split California into three states? Billionaire's eccentric idea will get a vote

A proposal to divide the state in thirds will appear on the November 2018 ballot - but is it more than a stunt?

A proposal by the billionaire venture capitalist and Bitcoin investor Tim Draper to divide California into three separate states will appear on the November 2018 ballot after the "Cal 3" campaign garnered enough signatures for a statewide referendum.

Cal 3 is Draper's latest effort to break up the country's most populous state. In 2014, he spent $5.2m on a campaign to split the state into six pieces, but failed to qualify for the ballot when only about 750,000 of the 1.14m signatures collected were found to be valid.