DC statehood Megathread (pg 33 - Manchin questioning constitutionality)

[Hammy]

Republicans only think this is a power move because they don't actually have anything to run on other than exploiting others.

But this is par for the course for the party that thinks their fellow citizens having the right to vote is somehow unfair.

[wesmoorenerd]

Absolutely not. It would be deeply immoral to not just concede giving proper representation to hundreds of thousands of people but actively revoke proper representation from hundreds of thousands more.

Also, we just had a referendum on Puerto Rican statehood. The pro-statehood camp has won like three in a row.

[John Dule]

Cali isn't being broken up into 4 states

I've been put in my place.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

If D's do this, they will have to do it now, 2023 maybe too late, some D's are nervous about 2022 midterms that's why Manchin has come out in favor of this

Of course if Statehood pass this term, 2022 is negated for Rs to take control

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Well why stop there? I say we also remove statehood from the rest of the states.

DC and Puerto Rico should be the only two states; to make up for their decades of no representation.

Everyone else will be a Commonwealth of the new DC-Puerto Rico union.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

f r a c t a l   v i r g i n i a s

The mathematician in me is having a freaking mind trip over this.

[Former President tack50]

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.

Regarding Puerto Rico, it's not like the country immediately north of the US is also a federalized country, with one of its constituent units speaking a different language to all the others right? Oh wait! (Quebec)

Now, I can agree that admitting PR as a state could create some frictions, much like how Quebec creates them in Canada. But PR secessionism is even deader than Quebec separatism. I can agree with an argument along the lines of "Statehood is permanent, PR is very different from the rest of the US and it doesn't have a strong enough mandate on the island"; but a purely cultural argument is nonsense. Canada handles Quebec fairly well and I am confident the US would handle PR just as well, especialy since PR will be way smaller than QC is in Canada.

As for DC being too small, there are lots of federal countries where the capital city is small, yet it is also its own constituent unit: Berlin, Brasilia, CABA, etc. Why should Washington DC be any different?

Finally, I am pretty sure Atlasia admitted DC as a state a long time ago (and PR and the rest of the territories).

[Former President tack50]

That would certainly make statehood more palatable for me, but if we’re being honest, that will never happen.

There are already 8 wards in DC anyways, which is more than the 5 counties that exist in RI. It would be far from impossible to convert those 8 wards into counties and leave it at that. They wouldn't even be that much smaller than the actual real county of Kalawao, HI!

There are also already 131 neighbourhoods in DC, and while I don't know if they have any sort of self-government, it's not impossible to give it to them either.

[TheReckoning]

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.

Regarding Puerto Rico, it's not like the country immediately north of the US is also a federalized country, with one of its constituent units speaking a different language to all the others right? Oh wait! (Quebec)

Now, I can agree that admitting PR as a state could create some frictions, much like how Quebec creates them in Canada. But PR secessionism is even deader than Quebec separatism. I can agree with an argument along the lines of "Statehood is permanent, PR is very different from the rest of the US and it doesn't have a strong enough mandate on the island"; but a purely cultural argument is nonsense. Canada handles Quebec fairly well and I am confident the US would handle PR just as well, especialy since PR will be way smaller than QC is in Canada.

As for DC being too small, there are lots of federal countries where the capital city is small, yet it is also its own constituent unit: Berlin, Brasilia, CABA, etc. Why should Washington DC be any different?

Finally, I am pretty sure Atlasia admitted DC as a state a long time ago (and PR and the rest of the territories).

You’re from Spain, you know what cultural divisions can do to a country. I’m not saying PR statehood can never happen, I’m just saying there needs to a discussion about this because PR is unlike any other US state that we’ve ever admitted before.

[Former President tack50]

Republicans could admit Guam or the Northern Marianas I suppose (whether jointly or as separate states).

But outside those 2 (and the US Virgin Islands, which would almost certainly vote titanium D), there aren't any other territories to give statehood to.

The only other options to get new states at that point would be:

a) Splitting existing states. The question here is, what kind of state legislature will genuinely vote in favour of a part of the state seceding from the other?

b) Admitting foreign countries into the US. There is some historical precedent for this but I don't think there is any country out there right now which would want to be admitted to the US as a state.

"Israel and Taiwan statehood" is a Hillgoose meme, not a realistic possibility

[Former President tack50]

You’re from Spain, you know what cultural divisions can do to a country. I’m not saying PR statehood can never happen, I’m just saying there needs to a discussion about this because PR is unlike any other US state that we’ve ever admitted before.

Oh I agree that cultural divisions can be a source of headaches (indeed Spain is such an example*, as well as Canada and others).

I would even agree that admitting PR as a state now is a bad idea because of the incredibly weak mandate and lack of a pro-statehood majority in the legislature. I do not think Dems should be pursuing PR statehood just yet; maybe in the 2030s the majority will be enough.

But I am saying that cultural differences should not be enough to stop statehood. If PR eventually gives a very clear mandate in favour of statehood (say, a referendum going 65-35, a pro-statehood governor and clear pro statehood majorities in both chambers of the PR legislature) I think statehood can and should be done

_{*: For the record I will note that Catalonia in particular did support the Spanish constitution by huge margins back in 1978; 95% yes with 67% turnout. At least the Basques have the excuse that the referendum was boycotted and saw low turnout: 75% yes, 45% turnout}

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Republicans only think this is a power move because they don't actually have anything to run on other than exploiting others.

But this is par for the course for the party that thinks their fellow citizens having the right to vote is somehow unfair.

.
Exactly, as I said before, they blocked Merrick Garland and they are in the Minority, they can't 🛑 stop it

[Brittain33]

Guys. The debate over DC statehood is over. Republicans have very sound reasons of self-interest and power to not want to admit DC as a state and give its 700,000 citizens democratic representation. They refused to consider it or compromise when they held power so recognize proposed compromises for what they are, Hail Marys in a very rare time of weakness for our structurally overrepresented friends. There is no point in debating any longer. Either Dems will do it or they won’t in 2021 now that they have the power to do it. Republicans who just argued on the floor of Congress why the votes of Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Detroit are inherently invalid simply do not believe that the people of Washington deserve equal representation with rural white Americans and everything else is noise.

The “reckoning” on DC statehood came on Nov. 3 and Jan. 5 and debate is concluded.

[Brittain33]

We have two individual threads on DC and PR statehood and a thread about Manchin wanting new states where you make literally the same argument that you do in this new thread you started. There’s no need to flood the zone with arguments why Washington’s 700,000 citizens aren’t deserving of equal representation with rural white Americans, three existing threads are enough. Either the Dem trifecta is going to do it or not.

[Brittain33]

This is an interesting idea, but we may need to merge the Dakotas as well. I’ll start a new thread with a new survey for this proposal.

[7,052,770]

No, because there are only 4 more territories out there.

Splitting up states is a whole different thing than upgrading territories to states, which we've already done over 30 times in our history.

[It’s so Joever]

No, but if the GOP really wants to interpret it as such, the state of East Los Angeles will welcome the news

[ilikeverin]

If it leads to more people becoming fully-fledged citizens of the United States, I don't have a problem with them "retaliating", and would welcome the new states with open arms. I don't think Guamanian statehood is the best path to get them citizenship, but it's better than the status quo.

[Inmate Trump]

There should be no territories, and there shouldn't be any part of the United States where citizens don't have representation in Washington.

[afleitch]

If Republicans can't win supermajority black and hispanic states then that's their fault.

The only can of worms opened is America's asset stripping 1898 colonial legacy.

[It’s so Joever]

Guys. The debate over DC statehood is over. Republicans have very sound reasons of self-interest and power to not want to admit DC as a state and give its 700,000 citizens democratic representation. They refused to consider it or compromise when they held power so recognize proposed compromises for what they are, Hail Marys in a very rare time of weakness for our structurally overrepresented friends. There is no point in debating any longer. Either Dems will do it or they won’t in 2021 now that they have the power to do it. Republicans who just argued on the floor of Congress why the votes of Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Detroit are inherently invalid simply do not believe that the people of Washington deserve equal representation with rural white Americans and everything else is noise.

The “reckoning” on DC statehood came on Nov. 3 and Jan. 5 and debate is concluded.

Exactly, let’s not get tangled in these bad faith arguments.
We can simply label the GOP as anti-voter rights (they are) use the Capitol attack to prove our point, while secretly just wanting this for two new senators.

Why should we care what the GOP wants?

[It’s so Joever]

This is clearly the only sane way to get DC statehood.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Only if Queen Liz becomes the first governor of Washyoming. 

[The Dowager Mod]

I just merged 6 threads on this same topic. 

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

I just merged 6 threads on this same topic. 

Washyoming deserves its own thread though.