Justia columnist and U.C. Davis law professor Vikram Amar comments on Silicon Valley billionaire investor Tim Draper's proposed plan to divide up California into six separate states, on the ground that California’s diverse population and economies currently render the state nearly ungovernable. In this column, Amar spots and preliminarily analyzes some of the major issues that may arise regarding Draper's plan. (If and when the proposed measure successfully moves through various stages of the political process, Amar will likely offer a more detailed analysis of many of the questions that the plan raises.)
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Justia columnist, George Washington law professor, and economist Neil Buchanan argues that, in the inevitable 2014 debt-ceiling fight, unless President Obama changes his approach, the Fed will be forced to spend enormous political capital defending the financial system. The damage that would then ensue, Buchanan notes, could take decades to fix, if it could be fixed at all.