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More realistic than Puerto Rico at the moment. Im sure Republicans will try to block it due to the fact that it would give 2 more Democratic senators, but Dems will argue that its about giving DC their dues.
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They have, but my understanding is the populace didn't think anything would come of it and not a lot of participation.
We should announce are intent to honor whatever they pick, for realzies.
It's important because right now a very large metropolitan area (and one of the largest per capita populations of POC in America) currently does not really get to vote. They get to send "pretend" representatives to Congress who don't actually have voting power, don't have any say in President, etc.
They basically get to choose their Mayor and that's about it.
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Because 100 of thousands of Americans lack a voice in our democracy.
User Warned: Attempted Thread Derail
This is cool and all, but where are the $2000 checks we were promised!
people are struggling out there!
people are struggling out there!
Why not? What legitimate reasons do they have to stop Washington becoming a state? If all they've got is "that state will never go red" then isn't that an issue with Republican politics?
We'd have 2 more Senators (it's 2 Senators per state), and those would almost certainly be Democrats most of the time.
DC would also get representatives in the House, and again would be generally Democrats.
Checked up on this and they just had one in 2020 that was basically split, but the one before that was the one I remembered and it was very high, but that's because opponents stayed home.
Seems to be a desire there, but not nearly as strong as I originally thought.
Pretty much. It's been common knowledge that any time a vote has come about being a state, it's never really going to lead into anything. How it would play out if that vote was done with the explicit acknowledgment and knowledge that it would count for real this time is anyone's guess I imagine. It seems, just looking from the outside, the opinion is very split about it in general in PR. We have posters who live there, though, so they may be able to flesh out details on that.
This:
Why Statehood for DC | statehood
For more than 200 years, the residents of Washington, DC have been subjected to systemic inequality and denied the full rights of citizenship that the residents of states enjoy including voting representation in Congress. It is time to right a great historic wrong.
statehood.dc.gov
DC residents fulfill all of the obligations of US citizenship and yet are denied representation.
Washington, DC is large enough to be a state:
- DC has 712,000 residents, more than Vermont and Wyoming and comparable with other states including Delaware, Alaska, and several others.
- DC residents pay the highest per-capita federal income taxes in the US.
- In total, DC residents pay more in total federal income tax than residents of 22 other states, but have no say over how those tax dollars are spent..
- DC now operates as if were a state with the exception of federal control over our courts and people in prison for committing felonies in DC.
- DC receives between 25-30% of its budget from the federal government; as a percentage, this is less than five states and is on a par with three others.
- DC residents have fought and died in every war, yet those armed service members are denied the freedoms they have fought to protect.
- DC elects a non-voting Delegate to the US House of Representatives who can draft legislation but cannot vote. The current Delegate for DC is Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton.
- DC residents do not have a voice in Senate Committees or on the Senate Floor. This means that DC residents have no say in the determination of who should serve as leadership for federal agencies, serve as U.S. Ambassadors to foreign countries, sit on federal court benches or serve in the U.S. Supreme Court. This is true even for the federal courts within DC's boundaries.
- The Constitution sets only a maximum size, "ten miles square," for the federal district that is the "Seat of the Government of the United States." Congress has the authority to redefine the borders of the federal district and shrink its size, as it did in 1846, when the portion west of the Potomac was returned to Virginia (now Arlington and Alexandria Counties).
- Creating the new state will require a simple reduction in the size of the federal district to an unpopulated area which includes the US Capitol, the National Mall, museums, some federal office buildings, the White House, the Supreme Court, and major national monuments.
I keep hearing mixed things about PR statehood. Some point to their referendums overwhelmingly supporting it while one friend of a friend there said those are pushed by the pro-statehood party and most of the anti-statehood people boycott them, so I actually don't know what's up anymore
Washington D.C. is a special territory/district not contained within any other state where the capitol seat of government is located. The original idea was that the federal government would directly control the area for the purposes of their own operations and, not being in a state, no one state could interfere with it.
However, over two centuries later, its now a massive city where hundreds of thousands of people working for the federal government or working for local businesses live. Since D.C. is not part of any state, people living there have absolutely no representation outside of their own city government. They don't get to participate in any federal government elections. Since the constitution only require that the specific capitol buildings to be in the non-state district, the idea would be to form everything else into a new state.
Politically, this is good for the democratic majority as Washington D.C. is one of the most left-leaning districts in the entire country. They would be a consistent and practically guaranteed 2 senators and 1 house of representatives member for the Democrats. At the current time, that would take the Senate from 50-50 with the vice president tie breaker to 52-50 for the Democrats.
It doesn't matter who they vote for, everyone should have the same representation in Congress. I don' care about the political games. Same thing for Puerto Rico and all the other territories. I don't think that these areas should be in a nebulous state for all of eternity. Either be admitted as a state or send them off on their own. Their choice.
This round nearly half their voting age population voted on the referendum with 52% voting yes. Turnout was basically double over 2017s vote where it was 97% yes. I'd still need some more convincing that more of their pop wants it, but I don't make the laws so whatever happens happens I guess.
Thanks everyone, understood it now!
The bolded is such a weird thing to comprehend. I mean, I understand the idea based on the 2nd sentence, but yeah, still weird that by living there, you have less rights than people in the same country as you. Hope that statehood bill goes through!
The bolded is such a weird thing to comprehend. I mean, I understand the idea based on the 2nd sentence, but yeah, still weird that by living there, you have less rights than people in the same country as you. Hope that statehood bill goes through!
There are reasons why the two are skittish about nuking the fillibuster, in particular both Constitutional ones (the "original intent" to need to find compromise) and 'situation reversed' ones (imagine the GOP having a super narrow majority and free to do anything they want).
I don't see any reason why they would oppose DC statehood...
If you mean fear for their seats, that would be true for literally anything they would vote for that would not be Republican endorsed.
I don't think they have that problem here, specially not Sinema, and specially not for a DC statehood.
So with this bill being introduced, DC residents do not have to vote again on it, right? Like they've already done that step and said "yes, we want to become a state", right?
It is true that the pro-statehood party sort of pushes it on people, but in the last general election in November, the Statehood referendum was included as opposed to it being a separate vote on a separate day. So on the day you went out to vote, you were handed 4 ballots: Gubernatorial (and DC representative), Municipal, Legislative and Statehood.
Therefore, a lot of people felt forced to vote on the Statehood bill since otherwise your vote would feel "incomplete". I bet few people were like "no thanks, I don't want to vote for statehood" and handed the ballot back.
Statehood won with 52.34%. Source: https://www.ceepur.org/Elecciones/docs/Certificacion - resultado preliminar del Plebiscito 2020.pdf
Previously it was planned to be called "New Columbia," but now they're looking at calling it "State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth" (abbreviated to Washington DC) after Fredrick Douglass. You know, because of the whole Columbus = horrific thing.
If 50 Republicans vote against it, you need 50 democrats to vote for it for the tiebreaker to come in effect. The VP can't vote if it's 49 to 50 if Sinema or Manchin abstains.
Smallest by land mass, but as far as population goes it's bigger than Wyoming and Vermont.
Our Congress is split into two pools of politicians, Senators and Representatives. To pass new legislation, you need a majority of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Each state in the US gets exactly two Senators and a number of Representatives that are roughly proportional to the population in the state. The downside of this system is that rural, more conservative states get over-represented in the legislative process. California has 70X the population of Wyoming but weilds the same amount of votes in the Senate, to give an extreme example.
I believe the reason it was originality done like this was because the original goal was more focused on territorial expansion but now that system is biting us in the ass. So DC, which is on the liberal side of the spectrum, being added helps bring more voting power in the Senate to the liberal contingent that is underrepresented.
"It can wait" meaning pass DC statehood first, and then Puerto Rico statehood. Not "It can wait" meaning fuck Puerto Rico lol
Would Republicans pushing this as a "socialist power grab" have any backlash to them? The idea of not letting people have representation is counter to some of their beliefs yes? So its gonna need some mental gymnastic from their side to oppose?
Relatively soon if history is any indicator. When Hawaii and Alaska became states in 1958 & 1959, the whole process took about 6 months for each state. For instance, with Hawaii the statehood act was proposed in the spring, passed, and signed within a week, and then it was officially a state by August. They both held special elections prior to statehood, so Hawaii's in July for instance.
But...
It was a different time. Hawaii was almost unanimous, 86-3 I think in the Senate. Alaska was a more complex story, the actual vote for statehood once the votes were were was a quick process, but Alaskan statehood had been proposed and failed several times before, over decades, but once the whole process started and was approved it was quick.
Today ... eh. It'll be a shit show like everything.
For sure, but the DC representation issue has been a public, stated, well known issue for 90+ years. It's been on the damned license plates in the territory since 2000, but nobody on the right cares.
The idea of not letting people have representation should be contrary to their beliefs, but that philosophical belief has always been subservient to the desire for power among conservatives in America, back to the very founding of the country, through to Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and modern efforts to withhold voting rights from citizens.
As an issue this goes back maybe more than a century, here's a political cartoon from 1931:
1965
The reality is that statehood in the US has never, ever been about enfranchising the people living in those territories, it's always been about maintaining power or balancing power in government... And frankly, DC Statehood is also about balancing power in Washington. Democrats would not be taking up DC statehood if this didn't secure two more Democratic seats in the Senate. Democrats might play lipservice to it, "Wouldn't it be nice?" but if DC was like ... a purple district or something, then there'd be very little motivation for it outside of the residents of Washington DC. When I make arguments for DC statehood of course I focus on something like the capitol insurrection, which would have been prevented if the Mayor of DC had power over her National Guard as governor of DC, but my motivations are about political balance ... I want those 2 senators.
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They might not have one. It's not a necessity - Nebraska has a unicameral legislature.
Agreed. There's literally proof that the executive was detrimental to getting the National Guard out in response to the insurrection. Lack of political representation is the older argument and if anything only bolsters that this admission isn't super-reactionary.
We also need to acknowledge that PR independence is not anywhere close to popular, so marking a vote as "statehood vs. independence" effectively strongarms them into statehood. They may very well choose to maintain the current relationship, but there needs to be a proper ballot to determine that.
A few months, they've had plans in place for years and don't have to travel like back in the 50's
It gives them greater margins on their power and means they don't lose their power if a random senator dies
Definitely possible, may not even require a filibuster nerf if they argue it doesn't apply. Or they can make it so the filibuster doesn't apply to statehood like it doesn't apply to court justices
Here's what AOC has to say
PR is a multi year reconstruction project then a vote before it can even come to the senate as a bill. They need a solid foundation before they can choose. Meanwhile DC is just a pair of votes
Minor correction - D.C. does have three electoral votes in presidential elections.
Honestly all US territories should become states just to make sure that there's no "you're in the wrong place so no vote for you" bollocks going on. Puerto Rico definitely needs some sort of statehood and if it's just to make sure the mainland cares when PR gets ravaged by another hurricane.
