DC statehood Megathread (pg 33 - Manchin questioning constitutionality)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No current US territories meet the requirements to become a state in my opinion.

PR is too different, a very small percentage of its population can actually speak English. If the average Puerto Rican can’t communicate with the average North Carolinian, then that’s a problem, because citizens of the same country need to be able to communicate. Additionally, Puerto Rico is corrupt, and I feel like they just want the feds to bail them out.

DC is too small territorially. That’s a problem because then it will be compromised of only a single city. That leads to issues with separations of powers- I’m not comfortable with allowing an entire state to be controlled by one city. Not to mention there’s an explicit reason the founders were opposed to this.

All other territories have too small populations, among other issues.

Not to mention that these are being done for political reasons. If they voted differently, we all know most Atlasians would be completely opposed to this.

There are so many counterexamples of multilingual countries.

Outrageously false statement. I support representation of ALL Americans, even if I don't like the way they're going to vote. If Puerto Rico sends Republicans to the Senate, which they very well might, that's fine. They have every right to do so. If America is 52% Republican, 48% Democrat, then ideally the Senate would be that way too while my side figures out how to appeal to more people. Politics is NOT a game.

Can confirm this is Harry's stance on this matter.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I love how forumlurker pissed of everyone, GL FL.

Not me,  I'm just laughing.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

King, Kelly, Manchin, Sinema, have all expressed reservation about statehood so I would celebrate yet

No they haven't. They've all said something along the lines of "i have to look more into it" which is nowhere near a reservation and especially nowhere near opposition.

“I’m going to look into it,” is a nice way of saying “No.”

In this context, not really.  It's more like, I'll support it once it has the requisite support to pass, but I won't stick my neck out if it won't pass anyway.

And that would require 60 votes, which won’t happen.

Except that, as has been posted so many times on this forum over the last few months, there are many avenues to DC statehood that do not require 60 votes.

All it would require (in the Senate, anyway) is Manchin and Sinema agreeing that 50 votes is enough to admit new states.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Tbf everyone knew that the electoral votes of the district part was going to need to be handled eventually, the simplest thing to do is to just make the district the federal buildings and add 3 EVs to whoever won the Electoral College, if there's a 269-269 tie, then they could be left blank or go to the winner of the popular vote.

that’s…. actually pretty brilliant

Yeah, it is.