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A state is represented by two Senators (regardless of population). This would mean making PR a state would dilute other states votes. Regarding the House of R

A state is represented by two Senators (regardless of population). This would mean making PR a state would dilute other states votes. Regarding the House of Representatives, PR has a "delegate", called the Resident Commissioner - which have almost no voting power. The population also tends to vote almost %50/50 for democratic vs republican [i]. This setup basically gives no incentive for either party to push for PR to be a state. (Even though it should be). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_Puerto_Rico https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_Pu...

lotsofpulp 9y ago
It might still not be enough. Washington D.C. would almost certainly be a Democratic vote, but as I understand it, there's no way Republicans will allow D.C. voters to be represented in the Senate, all the while babbling about patriotism.
- culturestate 9y ago
  There's another more important problem for that specific situation: statehood (and the equivalent representation) for D.C. would require a constitutional amendment.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    So what? We've done that before.
    - culturestate 9y ago
      It's actually incredibly difficult to get a constitutional amendment heard and ratified. Even the equal rights amendment was shouted down despite massive bipartisan support. [Note] Also, such an amendment has already been sent to the states and failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Voting_Rights_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Voting_Ri...
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        I'm not denying that it's difficult, but it's been done, depending on how you want to count, either 27 or 18 times already. And there's no rule saying you can't consider an amendment again if it doesn't pass once.
- rayiner 9y ago
  DC as a federal city should not have Senators or representatives. People aren’t supposed to live here, it’s just supposed to be a safe place for the federal government to sit that isn’t controlled by a state. It certainly shouldn’t be a major metro region.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > DC as a federal city should not have Senators or representatives. People aren’t supposed to live here Then return the parts of the current district on which residences (other than official government ones like the White House) sit to the original states. Because people do, in fact, live in D.C., and those people are currently governed (and taxed) without representation in the federal legislature.
    - chrisco255 9y ago
      Then just absorb it into Virginia or Maryland.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        That's what I said. Although it runs into the problem that Virginia and Maryland don't want it.
        maxerickson 9y ago
        It could probably be turned into a simple matter of money.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        Sure, but the rest of the country with voting representatives in Congress would rather disenfranchise D.C. residents than pay Virginia and Maryland to take on the extra population and the census count, representation, etc., that comes with them. But Virgina and Maryland's existing citizens don't want to dilute their own votes in their own states to take on a bunch of (disproportionately) poor, urban blacks. The only people with a rational (short-term, at least) interest in D.C. representation is D.C. residents, and they don't get a vote, or even a vote for people who get a vote.
- briandear 9y ago
  DC is not a sovereign state, thus isn’t entitled to a senator. DC doesn’t have a state government that needs representation, which is the purpose of a senator. This isn’t some Republican conspiracy that just happened. The Senate wasn’t designed to represent “the people” anyway, it was designed to represent the interests of the sovereign states — of which DC is not. The House of Representatives is what represents “the people.” There is a persistent and fundamental lack of understanding of the US government by many people, case in point is the complete ignorance about the purpose of both the Senate and the electoral college. The US is a federal republic, not a democracy. This has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats, but with the Constitution.
  - lotsofpulp 9y ago
    Thank you for the background. I guess I should have written DC has no representation in the House then. Regardless of how it was originally setup, I don't see any reason why people paying federal taxes shouldn't have voting rights, at least in the House. Here's a good legal argument for it too: https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/poladv/letters/electionlaw/060914testimony_dcvoting.authcheckdam.pdf https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/poladv/...
  - sciurus 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_U...
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    You are just reiterating the complaint.
  - phaemon 9y ago
    > The US is a federal republic, not a democracy. The USA clearly is a democracy, since it has democratic elections. Specifically, it is a representative democracy. I have no idea why anyone thinks being a federation and/or being a republic are somehow in opposition to this. The three concepts are completely orthogonal.
- bkohlmann 9y ago
  While there is a political element to the opposition for D.C. Statehood, there is also a non-partisan one. D.C. was created as a compromise, deliberately set aside as a federal region, so no state would have control over the capital. It seems a reasonable thing to keep it as such.
  - kibwen 9y ago
    This used to be my opinion as well upon learning of the history of DC's foundation, but in retrospect it seems like it should not be outrageous to think of a compromise that enfranchises DC citizens without compromising the security of the capital.
    - SamReidHughes 9y ago
      You aren’t saying anything, because nobody’s calling the idea outrageous.
    - landryraccoon 9y ago
      The people who happen to live in DC seem to have quite a bit of influence over the government actually. Much more than the average Californian for example.
briandear 9y ago
Puerto Rico ought not be a state, it should be independent. Why the US would want to annex PR would be a mystery to me.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Why the US would want to annex PR would be a mystery to me. That doesn't make any sense. The US already did that. It's a matter of undoing it or giving it equal status with states, not a matter of claiming control of the territory.
- astura 9y ago
  The US can't "annex" Puerto Rico, that has long been done; Puerto Rico has been American territory since 1899. For how it got that way, Spain agreed to succeeded it to end of the Spanish-American war.
  - labster 9y ago
    The word you're looking for is cede, pronounced the same as seed. The noun form is cession, because English is super complicated.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- blackbagboys 9y ago
  The Puerto Ricans themselves disagree, as they've never voted for independence in any of the referendums on the issue that have been held over the last fifty years.

lotsofpulp 9y ago

It might still not be enough. Washington D.C. would almost certainly be a Democratic vote, but as I understand it, there's no way Republicans will allow D.C. voters to be represented in the Senate, all the while babbling about patriotism.

culturestate 9y ago
There's another more important problem for that specific situation: statehood (and the equivalent representation) for D.C. would require a constitutional amendment.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  So what? We've done that before.
  - culturestate 9y ago
    It's actually incredibly difficult to get a constitutional amendment heard and ratified. Even the equal rights amendment was shouted down despite massive bipartisan support. [Note] Also, such an amendment has already been sent to the states and failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Voting_Rights_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Voting_Ri...
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I'm not denying that it's difficult, but it's been done, depending on how you want to count, either 27 or 18 times already. And there's no rule saying you can't consider an amendment again if it doesn't pass once.
rayiner 9y ago
DC as a federal city should not have Senators or representatives. People aren’t supposed to live here, it’s just supposed to be a safe place for the federal government to sit that isn’t controlled by a state. It certainly shouldn’t be a major metro region.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > DC as a federal city should not have Senators or representatives. People aren’t supposed to live here Then return the parts of the current district on which residences (other than official government ones like the White House) sit to the original states. Because people do, in fact, live in D.C., and those people are currently governed (and taxed) without representation in the federal legislature.
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    Then just absorb it into Virginia or Maryland.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      That's what I said. Although it runs into the problem that Virginia and Maryland don't want it.
      - maxerickson 9y ago
        It could probably be turned into a simple matter of money.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        Sure, but the rest of the country with voting representatives in Congress would rather disenfranchise D.C. residents than pay Virginia and Maryland to take on the extra population and the census count, representation, etc., that comes with them. But Virgina and Maryland's existing citizens don't want to dilute their own votes in their own states to take on a bunch of (disproportionately) poor, urban blacks. The only people with a rational (short-term, at least) interest in D.C. representation is D.C. residents, and they don't get a vote, or even a vote for people who get a vote.
briandear 9y ago
DC is not a sovereign state, thus isn’t entitled to a senator. DC doesn’t have a state government that needs representation, which is the purpose of a senator. This isn’t some Republican conspiracy that just happened. The Senate wasn’t designed to represent “the people” anyway, it was designed to represent the interests of the sovereign states — of which DC is not. The House of Representatives is what represents “the people.” There is a persistent and fundamental lack of understanding of the US government by many people, case in point is the complete ignorance about the purpose of both the Senate and the electoral college. The US is a federal republic, not a democracy. This has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats, but with the Constitution.
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  Thank you for the background. I guess I should have written DC has no representation in the House then. Regardless of how it was originally setup, I don't see any reason why people paying federal taxes shouldn't have voting rights, at least in the House. Here's a good legal argument for it too: https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/poladv/letters/electionlaw/060914testimony_dcvoting.authcheckdam.pdf https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/poladv/...
- sciurus 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_U...
- emodendroket 9y ago
  You are just reiterating the complaint.
- phaemon 9y ago
  > The US is a federal republic, not a democracy. The USA clearly is a democracy, since it has democratic elections. Specifically, it is a representative democracy. I have no idea why anyone thinks being a federation and/or being a republic are somehow in opposition to this. The three concepts are completely orthogonal.
bkohlmann 9y ago
While there is a political element to the opposition for D.C. Statehood, there is also a non-partisan one. D.C. was created as a compromise, deliberately set aside as a federal region, so no state would have control over the capital. It seems a reasonable thing to keep it as such.
- kibwen 9y ago
  This used to be my opinion as well upon learning of the history of DC's foundation, but in retrospect it seems like it should not be outrageous to think of a compromise that enfranchises DC citizens without compromising the security of the capital.
  - SamReidHughes 9y ago
    You aren’t saying anything, because nobody’s calling the idea outrageous.
  - landryraccoon 9y ago
    The people who happen to live in DC seem to have quite a bit of influence over the government actually. Much more than the average Californian for example.

briandear 9y ago

Puerto Rico ought not be a state, it should be independent. Why the US would want to annex PR would be a mystery to me.

maxerickson 9y ago
Why the US would want to annex PR would be a mystery to me. That doesn't make any sense. The US already did that. It's a matter of undoing it or giving it equal status with states, not a matter of claiming control of the territory.
astura 9y ago
The US can't "annex" Puerto Rico, that has long been done; Puerto Rico has been American territory since 1899. For how it got that way, Spain agreed to succeeded it to end of the Spanish-American war.
- labster 9y ago
  The word you're looking for is cede, pronounced the same as seed. The noun form is cession, because English is super complicated.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
blackbagboys 9y ago
The Puerto Ricans themselves disagree, as they've never voted for independence in any of the referendums on the issue that have been held over the last fifty years.