Quote (bogie160 @ Oct 27 2020 08:22am)
We have a lot of people with no effective representation in Congress.
As I said, why don't we simply cede that land back to Maryland? Why make another tiny state if not specifically for the purposes of increasing Dem numbers in the Senate?
Puerto Rico deserves to be a state, DC does not.
Both Maryland, Virginia, and the citizens residing in DC do not want that and I think that's the important part. As long as the federal buildings/parks/monuments are carved out of the city states, I don't really mind. I'd prefer if they call the new state Columbia/Columbus though.
Quote (Black XistenZ @ Oct 27 2020 08:57am)
Do the other states have to sign off on the admission of a new state to the union? To the best of my knowledge, other states have no say/veto power in the process - their ratification is only necessary when amending the Constitution.
It's up to Congress. Breaking up a state requires permission from the state as well which is why we will never see land ceded from CA, NY, etc.
Quote (ofthevoid @ Oct 27 2020 08:05am)
The 2 other in reality are solid blue for the next 30 years easily. So the balance of power in the Senate just went from 51-49 to 51-51. That's absolutely massive. And we know Republicans probably lose a few senate seats this time around so in reality its going to be something like 48-54. 2 Extra senate votes in the senate is massive.
All of these entities are represented in the house of reps fairly accurately but to me this is an attempt at a power grab in the senate, a pretty blatant one that like I said would make the senate be majority blue for a really long time.
Northern California, upstate NY, Southern Oregon, etc are also only represented by 1 branch out of the 2 tbh, despite paying high taxes, despite having electoral votes.
I think the issue is that the status quo HEAVILY favors Republicans at the moment. I'm not particularly concerned though because it usually evens out. Even with DC/PR as states, there's no reason why the GOP can't make gains in both the popular vote and Senate. If you have good stances on the issues, then you're going to win elections. I see no reason why we need to carve more states from current states though. The Senate isn't meant to represent people anyway.