Confusion State

A gentleman here has opined that the map of the United States be redrawn so as to allow each state to have a roughly equal number of people and thus equal representation in the Electoral College that casts the actual votes for President of the United States. Each new state would have roughly 5.5 million people in it.

On the one hand, as I reside in a state that currently casts seven electoral votes (one each for our two senators and five representatives) and which has not cast them for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson, so that could be interesting. The map creator notes two potential problems. Some counties within the new state lines might have the same name and need to distinguish themselves. And local governments would have to deal with shifts in state laws and procedures.

The first disadvantage is pretty minor. The second could be quite the little spat in some places. For example, the proposed state of Great Basin includes, in addition to parts of Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, both Nevada and Utah. Nevada's state laws allow for a few things -- prostitution, gambling, etc. -- that residents of Utah look upon unfavorably, to say the least. Legislative sessions to square up those ordinances would make quite a fun show.

And some people might want to suggest different names for their new states. We west-side Okies, for example, get the neat new name of Llano Estacado as we're merged with western Kansas and parts of Colorado, Texas and New Mexico. Western Oklahoma and western Kansas are, of course, steeped in Hispanic history (or not), but what the heck, the new name sounds cool. Eastsiders, on the other hand, merge with a sliver of northern Texas and eastern Arkansas to form "Brownia," which is quite possibly the most boring name ever conceived for a state. Northern Ohio gets to be "North Coast," but southern Ohio is stuck with "Sohio."

Missourians get to keep most of their state intact, as do Washingtonians, although the latter get renamed to Olympia. So do Michiganders. Or "Michianers." They only lose Detroit, and except for the airport, it's hard to figure out what they would miss. Other major cities, like Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Dallas become their own states. New York actually becomes more than one, spawning the new state Long Island. Or Lawn Guyland, as it's said in the native tongue. So does Los Angeles, splitting into the states of Los Angeles and Orange County. One hopes the new Orange County would not then split into counties itself, because that could get confusing quickly.

One potential problem worried me until I could sort of overlay a map of the current state of Texas onto this proposal. The new Llano Estacado included the current University of Oklahoma in Norman, and it wasn't clear at first whether it also included the University of Texas at Austin (It doesn't -- Austin becomes part of Pecos). I was worried I would have to consider this idea a blasphemy against the natural order of things -- Sooners and Longhorns representing the same state? As it is, I can just point out that it's silly.