Comment

Trump's Muslim Ban Shut Down Again by the 9th Circuit Court

128
KGxvi6/12/2017 1:04:16 pm PDT

I’ve been contemplating something today after seeing there was another referendum in Puerto Rico regarding statehood (apparently statehood won big, but a lot of opponents boycotted the election). What are the odds that Puerto Rico and DC (in some manner) could become States?

I mean, procedurally, for Puerto Rico it’s pretty straight forward, Congress passes a statehood law and the president signs it. DC is a bit more complicated because of the 23rd Amendment and Article I Section 8; but even still… statehood wouldn’t be that difficult - you announce that DC will become a state, you pass a constitutional amendment repealing the 23rd Amendment and pass a statehood law at the same time (or have one become effective on the passage of the other).

What I’m considering is more the political implications. Puerto Rico becomes the 29th largest state in the Union, entitling it to 5 seats in the House; DC would get one seat in the house. Do we increase House membership (at least temporarily, I’d prefer it being a permanent increase) to 441? Between 5 new Representatives, and 4 new Senators, what are the political calculations? I’d figure all three Congressional members from DC would be Democrats, figure the PR Senators get split (complete guess), you’re looking at a 53-51 split in the Senate.

Would that be tenable for the parties? Also, one more interesting question, what if Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands were made into a single state?