Democrats will try to add an extra state to increase their votes in Congress

Discussion in 'United States' started by kazenatsu, Mar 22, 2021.

  1. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Democrats are going to try to add an extra state to the United States to increase their votes in Congress, trying to tip the balance of power.

    The House of Representatives has just passed a bill that would give the District of Columbia statehood.
    This is a district with only 600,000 permanent residents, yet becoming a state would give them two senators.

    They already do have a delegate in the House of representatives, although she can't cast a vote. Personally, I wouldn't be totally against giving the representative of this district a vote in the House, but it could get messy, for two reasons. First, the Constitution would have to be amended. It's much easier to just make them a state, from a legal standpoint. Second, a big segment of DCs population is made up of people who are temporarily working there but who do not permanently live there. That could make things kind of messy and raise some controversial issues of fairness, if the delegate who they are voting for actually has a real vote in the House.

    The other part of this, the District of Columbia is the national seat of government. How can you run a national government when the entire area directly surrounding you, the streets and everything, are under the control of a state government, separate from the national government? There is a big inherent potential for problems right there. There's a reason why the Constitution set the District of Columbia aside and did not give them the right of local self-governance.
    If these people don't like not having a voice then they should move out of DC. It's just a small district in terms of area. Their entire local economy is dependent on the federal government. That's just the price for choosing to live there. In fact a lot of workers there commute from suburbs just outside the district.

    It's not like Democrats have not tried to do this before. A decade ago it was Puerto Rico they were trying to add and give statehood too.
    The Puerto Rican population had been asked before, on three different occasions, whether they wanted to be granted statehood. The answer was no each time. When that didn't work, the politicians in DC drafted a bill to send a misleadingly worded referendum to the population there in two parts. The first referendum would ask if they were content to maintain the current status of Puerto Rico. Naturally they would get a 'no' because the population in Puerto Rico was discontent with the way things were and people were looking for change. However, the planned follow-up referendum question would only contain three options, and "none of the above" was not one of them. It would basically keyhole the majority of voters into checking off in favor of statehood on the referendum, even though the majority of the voting population in Puerto Rico did not actually want that. (voters who refused to vote on the second referendum would not be get counted, then they could claim the majority of voters who responded to final referendum had voted for statehood)

    Even though this would supposedly be a "non-binding" referendum, they could then take the results of this referendum to Congress and claim that it showed Puerto Ricans did actually want statehood. And then of course they'd use it to try to get an actual bill for Puerto Rican statehood passed.

    A sly political trick.

    Glenn Beck did a special about it:


    Glenn Beck -4-28-2010- Puerto Rico_The 51st State- Part 1
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xutsLShcvNI



    It's a very hard video to watch, and Beck kind of beats around the bush, very frustratingly, but skip to 10:00 into the first video to get to the key part.

    An explanation why Puerto Ricans themselves are not flocking to demand statehood status:
    Puerto Ricans, being of Latin American culture, generally resent the Anglos and the US, but they enjoy the freebies and huge tax breaks that come with territory status, which they would not have if they were a state with full voting rights. The US extends a huge degree of local autonomy and freedom to Puerto Rico. They practically are their own state, the way things are being run right now, in terms of self governance and local determination.
    There have been some calls for complete Puerto Rican independence, to break off and form their own country, but they also know Puerto Rico would be in a much worse off position if it broke off from the US. They can see how things are in other Caribbean countries, and the standards of living there are even lower than Puerto Rico. At least now they get open trade access with US markets, and all sorts of economic assistance. So they are overall content with the status quo.

    Also the saner Puerto Ricans know there is a lot of corruption in local government on their island, and that honestly they are probably better off with government administered from afar, even though it is hard to swallow their national (Puerto Rican) pride.

    There's also the language difference, with over 85% of Puerto Ricans speaking Spanish, and the majority of them not being able to speak English very fluently. Puerto Ricans don't really consider themselves "Americans" in nationality.

    Right now (as of late March 2021), Democrats are talking about trying to make Puerto Rico a state again. They hold the House and Presidency, and have a narrow majority in the Senate, but Republicans in the Senate are filibustering to prevent this legislation from passing. Democrats are talking about changing the rules to remove prevent use of the filibuster, but there are enough Democrat senators who have expressed concern that the filibuster is supposed to help protect the rights of the minority, and if they change the rule it could later be used against Democrats if they had a held a slight minority in the Senate.
     
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  2. Capt Nice

    Capt Nice Well-Known Member

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    Republicans are making it more difficult for minorities to vote so they can increase their chances of winning elections. :)
     
  3. GrayMan

    GrayMan Well-Known Member

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    Either they receive equal status and pay the same taxes or they are on their own as their own nation. I don't think we should have a subclass state or citizen status.

    This is more important than maintaining political power.
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2021
  4. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    One might be able to make the argument DC deserves a house member, but they absolutely do not deserve 2 senate seats, or even 1 senate seat.

    A seat in the senate is a lot more powerful than a seat in the house, with the senate having only 100 seats, while the house of representatives has 435, we have to remember.

    Also, if DC was a state, they would have only slightly more (permanent) population than the two least populated US states. So the level of fairness of even giving them 1 voting seat in the House is debatable.

    Not so fair to other states like Alaska, Montana, and Delaware. (Those states also have only 1 house member, but significantly bigger populations)

    Right now, DC does not have the right to vote in Congress, but since the 23rd Amendment, they do have the right to vote for President, through the Electoral College. Which seems fair enough.
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2021
  5. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Also I found this little interesting tidbit, posted by another member in this forum:
    member name: Montoya
    January 15, 2021
    thread title: Democrats must solidify power
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2021
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  6. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    Whatever the slimeballs can do to secure power for them selves.
     
  7. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I would imagine that if given the choice, Puerto Ricans would much rather have the Jones Act repealed than have the right to vote in Congress.

    The Jones Act (also known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920) is really holding back Puerto Rico's economy. The island is not allowed to accept shipments from other countries on foreign-manufactured shipping boats. As a result, most of these goods have to be unloaded in the US mainland first, then loaded onto another special American-made ship to be sent to Puerto Rico. That greatly increases costs, and makes Puerto Rican industry uncompetitive.
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2021
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  8. GrayMan

    GrayMan Well-Known Member

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    I agree, it might be better to bring them into an existing state or merge them all into one state. Maybe make all island states as part of Hawaii or make Puerto Rico a part of Florida. Preferably all 14 territories would all be under the one new state once created.

    If we are going to include Puerto Rico we should include all the territories as well.
     
  9. Kranes56

    Kranes56 Banned

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    I'm pretty okay with this. I won't lie when I say sure it will benefit me the most, but we've also disenfranchised people by having them not be counted. Doesn't seem right to me to do that.
     
  10. GrayMan

    GrayMan Well-Known Member

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    I am aware that there very un-American and un-democratic democrats. However, we all have to be better than them, better than that.

    I just think if we do one we should do all, and we can put them under the same state. Combined would they have an equivalent population?
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2021
  11. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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