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_Pu...
[Note] Also, such an amendment has already been sent to the states and failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Voting_Ri...
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.
Although it runs into the problem that Virginia and Maryland don't want it.
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.
This strikes me as a very truthy claim. I'd expect the vast majority of people to be utterly indifferent to paying Virginia or Maryland to absorb parts of DC. They might say otherwise in a poll, but they'd act like it never happened when they next voted.
[1] As noted below, a significant fraction of the African American population live in D.C. because their ancestors were brought here involuntarily. They should be permitted to vote.
That overstates the matter. The federal government was incapable of defending the District militarily against the states, because it intentionally had no significant standing army at the time the District was ceded to it [0]. Even after the U.S. Army started to take shape — mainly for service on the frontier, not at the national capital — it's doubtful that the District could have resisted invasion by the militia of even one of its state neighbors; this is indirectly evidenced by the ease with which the British took and burned Washington in 1814.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_A...
The thought that "people aren't supposed to live here" makes no difference to the matter; people do live there, a lot of people, more than the entire states of Wyoming and Vermont, and without those residents the government would cease to function.
It would be feasible to enfranchise the citizens of DC by granting statehood while also maintaining the original intent of the city, by requiring the new state constitution to yield all physical security to the authority of the federal government.
DC statehood would also help mitigate the distortive effect of allocating 2 Senators to every state regardless of population, which exaggerates the rural vote.
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.
https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/poladv/...
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.
I can see that the context doesn't fit with today's ideas and definitions of how our country's government works, but that is exactly how the country was set up in the beginning.
This was how it was designed, and if state congresses still elected federal senators, this argument against DC having senate representation would hold water. Once the 17th Amendment changed it to direct election of senators, the chamber no longer represented the interests of the state, it now just gives the people in less populous states a lot more influence over the law.
And over time it has evolved to directly represent the people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_U...
We have 27 reasons to think the constitution as designed was imperfect, and at least one reason to think the representation of DC was flawed. I'm sure we can add more.
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.
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.
For how it got that way, Spain agreed to succeeded it to end of the Spanish-American war.
Residents of Puerto Rico don't pay Federal income tax.
They do pay other Federal taxes such as social security and import duties.
A number of hedge fund managers and other high-net-worth people have established homes in PR just to avoid Federal income tax.
> Residents of Puerto Rico don't pay Federal income tax.
As an immigrant I get to both pay federal taxes and can’t vote, so no representation. :)
Just pointing out they’re not necessarily correlated.
Well, generally constitutional rights don't fully apply to us non-citizens. Don't think that's a very meaningful argument in this context.
At least do some research.
The Democratic Party (well, it's currently dominant faction, at least) is also center right.
> If Puerto Rico were to join as a state you'd more likely than not find its politicians trying to retain their own party ties.
There'd be strong pressure to fuse with or be displaced by the national parties once PR was involved in Congress and, more importantly, Presidential elections; the days of states having distinct local major parties on a lasting basis likely ended when the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party aligned with the national Democratic Party, and the nationalization (and globalization) of the media, combined with the way electoral politics works means that's unlikely to change even with the admission of new states with pre-existing party systems.
Besides that, it's really hard to believe that even Puerto Ricans with conservative views are going to break in significant numbers for a party that seems to be so hostile to them.
That's not entirely true; pro-status-quo groups have boycotted all or part of ballots, or advocated voting for some other option than continued territory status to avoid clear wins for Statehood. That was true in 2017 where they boycotted the whole ballot, in 2012 where they boycotted the second (alternative status) part of a two part ballotmarking that called for a vote up or down on current status and then a separate vote on what the replacement status should be; in 1998 where they called for a vote for “none of the above” so their votes would be added to genuine NOTA votes.
It's true that Commonwealth (territory) status won in 1967 and, narrowly, 1993, but it's clearly been declining over time, which is why that faction has been trying to deny clear results since 1998.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
According to these sources it also beats South Korea, New Zealand, and Israel, which frankly surprised me a bit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
Anecdotally (i know thats not a good example) most people I speak to always ask if needed a visa to more to one of the 50 states, they ask if you need a passport to visit and they ask if you can drive to PR.
But you already knew about the statistical peculiarity that was the 2016 Electoral College result, so I'm guessing you're repeating this hoping for some alt-right points on HN? Or just to demonstrate that public policy polling and statistics are somehow a big snake oil discipline that you're too intelligent to fall for?
Interestingly, apparently PR is still considered "unincorporated" meaning that the US Constitution doesn't apply in its entirety there.
> Last year, YouGov found that only 43 percent of Americans knew Puerto Ricans were U.S. citizens.
> Overall, 64 percent were in favor of aid to the island. ... That 64 percent in favor of aid increased to 68 when respondents were informed that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. Trump backers specifically saw a 10-point jump — from 57 percent to 67 percent — in favoring aid when told that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.
- People are US citizens, but can't vote in any national US election, except when they literally happen to be in any other state, then they can vote for President and that state's congressional representatives, and that state's local officials.
- The rationale for setting Puerto Rico's as a territory is prettttty racist by today's standards.
Against statehood:
- Federal money going yet somewhere else.
- Diluting representation in Congress.
- 51 though? yuck.
This is the traditional one:
http://a.abcnews.com/images/ABC_Univision/reddit_flags_FlagS...
Some more creative takes a la early US flags:
http://a.abcnews.com/images/ABC_Univision/reddit_flags_FlagT...
http://a.abcnews.com/images/ABC_Univision/reddit_flags_flagc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statehood_movement_in_Puerto_R...
http://thehill.com/homenews/news/337347-puerto-rico-votes-in...
>be called a state, why can't we do the same for Puerto Rico?
it isn't a state. As in taxation without representation.
Edit: it does sound like they might get shorted on Medicare benefits? It's unclear.
Edit2: this article looks at the difference between spending and taxes, in 2011, for all states and Puerto Rico: https://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/americas-...
If the poster was instead trying to use this bad connotation to assist the argument that Puerto Rico probably shouldn't be a territory (which I now assume after looking at your comment), then that argument was lost in what was written. The writing is unclear in its intent, and that is likely why some folks misunderstood it. It kinda assumes you get lucky and interpret what he's saying the right way.
Just wanna say that I completely agree, but also wanted to tack on their non-existent representation in Congress.
And the comment you replied to is also likely aware of such. That's why they pointed out a global cooperative body making noises about Puerto Rico and decolonization.
Also, your mention of Haiti is confused; it was a French colony, not a colony of the UK or US.
Nice catch. And yeah, I just wanted to try and make things clear - no intention to be sassy.
Morally, I don't think it matters in this case- whether it's a state or a territory or a sovereign government, the US (along with everyone else in a position to help) should be helping Puerto Rico as much as possible. It's just something I've never understood, and sadly it might be a factor in the current tragedy.
How about the fact that DC still has a lead contamination problem that was, at its peak, 20-30x worse than the one in Flint, MI? Is that a problem that makes you think the 680,000 residents of the city, who pay all federal taxes and overwhelmingly want to be recognized as a state, deserve the same representation as the people of Wyoming or Texas or New Hampshire? DC's lack of representation is shameful - the textbook example of cynical, undemocratic partisan politics.
Puerto Rico absolutely deserves better representation and all the aid necessary to help them rebuild, but DC's situation is ridiculous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_contamination_in_Washingt...
No more states. We could even stand to shed some others.
In large part due to the Jones act, which discourages trade between PR and its Caribbean neighbors.