'Three Californias' campaign gets $1 million boost

A wealthy investor has written a $1 million check to fund his own ballot initiative to split California into three states.

Tim Draper is widely expected to be the top supporter of his "three Californias" plan, a proposal that earned enough signatures to land on the Nov. 6 ballot earlier this week.

On top of the $1 million reported to the state on Thursday, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist gave "Citizens for Cal 3," an independent expenditure committee formed to back the measure, $220,000 in April. Draper spent nearly $560,0000 on legal and consulting work related to the proposal last year.

If history is any indicator, don't expect the founder and managing partner of Draper Associates to cut off the money supply any time soon. Draper previously spent $5 million to unsuccessfully place a measure on the 2014 ballot to carve California into six states.

A spokeswoman for the Cal 3 campaign on Wednesday declined to say how much Draper planned to spend on the ballot initiative this time around.

Draper's biography on his firm's website lists Skype, Tesla and Hotmail as his "venture successes," among others.

This story was originally published June 15, 2018 at 3:44 PM with the headline "'Three Californias' campaign gets $1 million boost."