Two would slice upstate from Big Apple

ALBANY — The debate has raged for decades: Should New York become two states?

And once again, some state lawmakers have introduced a bill that would allow counties to hold a referendum on whether the state should be separated into upstate and downstate.
The measure has gone nowhere in the Legislature and most likely never will, but Sen. Joseph Robach, R-Greece, and Assemblyman Stephen Hawley, R-Batavia, Genesee County, have submitted it again this year, saying the idea is something that voters should be allowed to weigh in on.
The bill is on the Assembly Local Governments Committee agenda today.

The bill doesn’t indicate where upstate would begin, but Hawley characterized it as anything north of Westchester County.
The results would be non-binding and the measure would then face other likely insurmountable obstacles. The state Legislature would have to approve it, and then it would require an act of Congress to make upstate its own state.
Robach said upstate might do well with its own leadership. “The policies on job creation, taxes, everything, would be very different and certainly worth looking at.”
Austin Shafran, spokesman for the Senate Democratic Conference, responded: “We should be focused on unifying New York to solve its problems, not tearing it apart.”
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