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Now that Democrats control the Senate, will DC statehood be back on the table?

P

pmv

Lifer
Not that I'm that up-to-speed on US internal politics - but didn't the Democrats try this last summer and fail because they lacked a Senate majority?

Seems to me they are unlikely to have such a majority very often, if at all, in future, at least if nothing is done to change the skewed senate representation, so are they planning to take another shot at this?
 
As far as I know, there is a legal prohibition against DC statehood. Something about the reason it was established as being a Federal enclave.
 
pmv said:
I get the impression Puerto-Rico is more complicated.
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Yeah PR is much more complicated statehood is the man disagreement between their political parties and it's fairly evenly split. Plus PR would be by far the poorest state with the worst infrastructure.

For both, the biggest challenge will be there filibuster. The republicans will fight hard to prevent democratic seats from being added to the Senate.
 
Zorba said:
Yeah PR is much more complicated statehood is the man disagreement between their political parties and it's fairly evenly split. Plus PR would be by far the poorest state with the worst infrastructure.

For both, the biggest challenge will be there filibuster. The republicans will fight hard to prevent democratic seats from being added to the Senate.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I forgot about the filibuster. Even when the Dems manage by a miracle (the miracle of demographic change, I guess) to ovecome the Republican-skew in the system, they still aren't in a position to actually do anything.

The US system really is set up to make it hard for anything to ever change.

(and with PR, yeah, I had the impression it's not at all clear-cut that they even _want_ statehood, as there are also downsides for them)

I propose the alternative back-up plan of re-merging the Dakotas into one state!
 
DC shouldn't be a state. No state should be the center of government...which is why the District of Columbia was founded to begin with. I've always thought no one who isn't a federal employee working in DC should be allowed to live there. (kind of like military housing on/around military bases)
 
BoomerD said:
DC shouldn't be a state. No state should be the center of government...which is why the District of Columbia was founded to begin with. I've always thought no one who isn't a federal employee working in DC should be allowed to live there. (kind of like military housing on/around military bases)
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I don't know why they let it grew the way they did, but they did. They should split the government from resident areas. Make the resident areas a state, and leave the government areas as a district with basically no population.

If it weren't for the Senate I'd say merge the population areas back into Maryland, but with the senate issues, make it its own state.
 
compuwiz1 said:
It would require amending the constitution, then must be ratified by 38 out of 50 states, or three fourths. Good luck!
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As far as I can see that claim is contested. But it may be a valid one, I admit.


Really seems that the US constitution is designed to make changing anything nearly impossible. I really don't get why its so venerated, it seems like a bad design, to me. Indeed, I don't get the preoccupation (as seen in this article) with the idea that it was all carefully 'designed' at all. Surely the reality is it came out of a lot of horse-trading and botched compromises between rival centres-of-power? Some of it, I've heard, just because everyone involved in drawing it up was knackered and wanted to go home.

I tend to think formal written constitutions are over-rated in general. They never work as planned, because nobody can foresee all future social and technological developments. The main thing is they should be easy to change. Any constitution that isn't, is a bad design. A rigid constitution suggests a deep distrust of 'the people'. If you distrust your populace so much, why not just stick with a monarchy?
 
Zorba said:
I don't know why they let it grew the way they did, but they did. They should split the government from resident areas. Make the resident areas a state, and leave the government areas as a district with basically no population.

If it weren't for the Senate I'd say merge the population areas back into Maryland, but with the senate issues, make it its own state.
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The people in DC, PR and the other territories don't get equal government representation and that is a problem. Perhaps combine all the territories and DC into one representative state with a total of 2 senators and equated number of representatives.
 
GoPackGo said:
The people in DC, PR and the other territories don't get equal government representation and that is a problem. Perhaps combine all the territories and DC into one representative state with a total of 2 senators and equated number of representatives.
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The needs and people of DC and PR are about as different as Alaska and Florida. Combining them makes no sense.

I could see combining PR and the Virgin Islands, but not PR and DC.
 
GoPackGo said:
The people in DC, PR and the other territories don't get equal government representation and that is a problem. Perhaps combine all the territories and DC into one representative state with a total of 2 senators and equated number of representatives.
Click to expand...
If DC is not to retain it's special status, then it can revert to Maryland, I think the Constitution has something about the seat of the Federal Government not being under control of a state.
 
Zorba said:
For both, the biggest challenge will be there filibuster. The republicans will fight hard to prevent democratic seats from being added to the Senate.
Click to expand...

It isn't merely a "challenge." It's a complete bar. Nothing is going to pass, not this or any other legislation other than what can be passed through budget reconciliation, without first ending the filibuster.

I feel like people on the left keep wanting certain things to happen and talking about them as if they might happen when it is all a fantasy until we change that rule in the Senate.
 
There would have to remain a district that remained federal land, but the Constitution doesn't say anything about the location of the district and the only limitations on its size is that it can't be *larger* than 10 miles square. I completely disagree with the linked article that it would require an amendment to resize the federal district.

Here, this is obviously super-biased, but so is Jacoby:
https://dcstatehoodyeswecan.org/j/i...atehood&catid=57:statehood-process&Itemid=120
 
ewdotson said:
There would have to remain a district that remained federal land, but the Constitution doesn't say anything about the location of the district and the only limitations on its size is that it can't be *larger* than 10 miles square. I completely disagree with the linked article that it would require an amendment to resize the federal district.

Here, this is obviously super-biased, but so is Jacoby:
https://dcstatehoodyeswecan.org/j/i...atehood&catid=57:statehood-process&Itemid=120
Click to expand...
It would definitely not require an amendment to resize it. The constitution places a maximum size on the district but not a minimum size, and there’s absolutely nothing in it that says Congress can’t shrink it if it wants to. Total nonsense.

But anyways, the filibuster is what will prevent it from happening. Most of the parts of the Democratic agenda that would make our government more fair and representative of the will of the majority are vulnerable to being filibustered by the current obstructive minority.
 
Conservative Dems have generally agreed that DC statehood should be on the table. I'd give this better odds than say comprehensive immigration reform.

Lowering the statehood bar to 51 votes seems relatively doable.
 
woolfe9998 said:
I feel like people on the left keep wanting certain things to happen and talking about them as if they might happen when it is all a fantasy until we change that rule in the Senate.
Click to expand...

Then that rule will be abolished, one way or another.

This nation wants change, the evolving world around us demands it. A failed government that is mired in dysfunction will only serve to heat up tensions until they boil over. Making Jan 6th look like a peaceful picnic in the park. America cannot stand still forever. Our nation will adapt or it will die.
 
BoomerD said:
DC shouldn't be a state. No state should be the center of government...which is why the District of Columbia was founded to begin with. I've always thought no one who isn't a federal employee working in DC should be allowed to live there. (kind of like military housing on/around military bases)
Click to expand...
Yeah, I thought the same thing when I visited DC in the late 90s. I expected vast open spaces, large Federal buildings and 10's of thousands of quaint houses and condos and apartment buildings built in perfect symmetry. It turned out to be a huge glaring city. I hadn't looked into it because we were staying with friends who took on the role of tour guides. Looking at news footage these days - I don't even know what to make of it. Oh well, another missed opportunity from the founding fathers.
 
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