[cratermoon]

> think the reason that a 51st or 52nd state can't be added is that the urgency of the matter is lacking.

The reason for the resistance to statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C. is because they both lean heavily Democratic, and the prospect of 2 or 4 more Democratic Senators is unacceptable to the Republicans.

[friend_and_foe]

I don't think that's the entirety of it. DC becoming a state is significantly more problematic than just the politics of it's residents, it's potentially unconstitutional. It makes more sense to cede the city outside the capitol to Maryland and Virginia and allow for representation that way (and what IMO should've been done instead of giving DC 3 electoral college votes via a constitutional amendment), and an amendment to make DC a state would require a lot of reorganizing, the clause providing for a 10 by 10 square mile federal district, the reasoning that the sovereignty of the united states can't be under jurisdiction of a state, it's just messy.

Puerto Rico, I think the political balance between parties is largely the prohibiting factor, you're right. But there are other issues, they are not compliant on a lot of requirements for statehood as per US law (congress has the power to regulate this with any legislation), and it seems the status quo in Puerto Rico is exactly what the more powerful political and financial interests there want.

[pyuser583]

> It makes more sense to cede the city outside the capitol to Maryland and Virginia …

I thought all of the land originally taken from Virginia had been returned in the 1800s.

Wouldn’t it just be returning it to Maryland?

[midoridensha]

Yes. DC used to be a square with the Potomac River running straight through it; the land on the Virginia side of the river was returned in the "retrocession" in the 1800s. Everything left is on the Maryland side now.

[mcv]

But wasn't Washington originally in Virginia? Did it move?

[midoridensha]

I'm sure there's a handy Wikipedia article about this, but in a nutshell, no: they wanted the capital to be independent of states, but no state wanted to just give up all that land. So they came up with the idea of both MD and VA contributing land on either side of the river. This land was also basically a swamp, so it wasn't terribly valuable. The original city was a perfect square, 10 miles on each side (not aligned NSEW, however), and there were boundary stones at the 4 corners and one stone every mile along the border. These stones are mostly still there, though some of them are on private property so are inaccessible.

Anyway, for whatever reasons I forget now, DC decided in the 1800s to give the VA side back to the state of VA. What's left is the part MD donated, which is why DC looks so odd on a map: 3 sides are straight (one of them being 10 miles long, the others roughly half), and the 4th side is just the river.

Also, just look at a map: the border between VA and MD is the Potomac River itself. For some strange reason, the King of England set the boundary between the two states to be at the shoreline on the VA side, so the river belongs to MD. So if you're standing on the shore on the VA side and walk into the river, you're now in the state of MD.

[macintux]

> Anyway, for whatever reasons I forget now, DC decided in the 1800s to give the VA side back to the state of VA.

As seems to be the dominant theme of the 1800s in the U.S, the answer is slavery. Thanks, I hadn’t heard about this.

> In the 1830s, the district's southern territory of Alexandria went into economic decline partly due to neglect by Congress. The city of Alexandria was a major market in the domestic slave trade, and pro-slavery residents feared that abolitionists in Congress would end slavery in the district, further depressing the local economy. Alexandria's citizens petitioned Virginia to take back the land it had donated to form the district, through a process known as retrocession.

> The Virginia General Assembly voted in February 1846 to accept the return of Alexandria. On July 9, 1846, Congress agreed to return all the territory that Virginia had ceded. Therefore, the district's area consists only of the portion originally donated by Maryland. Confirming the fears of pro-slavery Alexandrians, the Compromise of 1850 outlawed the slave trade in the District, although not slavery itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C.#Retrocession_...

[madcaptenor]

IIRC the corners of the ten-mile square are due north/south/east/west of the district's original center point - so it's aligned 45 degrees. (I had thought that the Capitol was dead-center within the original ten-mile square, but it's not.)

Also there are a few borders set to not be in the middle of the river - New Jersey-Delaware is another one, and there are bits of land on the Jersey side that technically belong to Delaware. (But New Jersey-Pennsylvania isn't, even though Delaware used to be part of Pennsylvania.)

[cratermoon]

> they are not compliant on a lot of requirements for statehood as per US law (congress has the power to regulate this with any legislation)

Hmm, I wonder how those laws got to be that way. It's a mystery.

[friend_and_foe]

Say what you mean.

Puerto Rico has blatantly unconstitutional gun laws. It has a minimum wage under the federal minimum wage. The US congress requires all applicant territories for statehood have constitutions compliant with the US constitution (a problem for North Dakhota until 1997 funny enough), have laws requiring child support on the books and a whole host of other laws. Puerto Rico is compliant on some fronts and not on others.

[rob74]

The only thing that the U.S. constitution has to say about gun laws is "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed". Which means Puerto Rico's gun laws are not in line with the current interpretation of this cryptic sentence prevalent in the 50 current states (as in more strict - what a scandal!), but saying they are unconstitutional is a bit of a stretch IMHO.

[midoridensha]

It IS unconstitutional, because the SCOTUS says so. Whatever their interpretation is, is the law and defines what's "constitutional". Yes, even when the Justices are a bunch of partisan hacks and their interpretation is BS. You may not like it, but that's the way the law works.

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

Funnily enough, the second amendment isn't that cryptic. It says that, in order for the states to remain free, they need their own militia made up of the people, and that militia needs arms, thus the federal government shall make no laws inhibiting their ability to acquire said arms.

Ironically, the laws we have on the books are technically unconstitutional.

[friend_and_foe]

Just a nitpick, it doesn't say the federal government shall make no laws, it basically says nobody will. Precedent after the fact limited the scope of the bill of rights to the federal government until the passage of the 14th amendment, but the wording of the amendment itself placed no such restriction.

[friend_and_foe]

Even under more restrictive interpretations that were prevalent in times past, Puerto Rico doesn't qualify. Their gun laws are very similar to other Latin American countries. They require you to have a reason to get a gun, and a "may issue" policy which means they can just say no with no justification required. They don't often say yes, so de facto gun ownership in Puerto Rico is banned, the only people that get them are the politically connected and people who grease palms.

[alanbernstein]

That bit about North Dakota is interesting, and it really seems to undercut your argument here...

[friend_and_foe]

Yeah it is pretty interesting, I read about it a long time ago and having trouble with the search engines, but some kid found a discrepancy between the ND constitution and the US constitution, which was quickly amended and fixed in 2012 (not 1997 as I thought). Basically the ND constitution didn't require the governor to take an oath of allegiance to the US, which the US constitution requires all state constitutions to require officers of the state to do.

[mcv]

> The reason for the resistance to statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C. is because they both lean heavily Democratic, and the prospect of 2 or 4 more Democratic Senators is unacceptable to the Republicans.

That's undoubtedly part of it, but I also get the impression that Puerto Rico itself isn't that eager to become a state. DC probably is and really does deserve better representation, but there are historical reasons for why it was made explicitly not a state. I think those reasons need to be revisited to see if they're actually still true (if they ever were).

[pyuser583]

In the past those partisan issues were dealt with by balancing incoming states — including breaking up existing ones,

There are plenty of conservative parts of liberal states that would love to succeed from their state.

Make Washington DC and East California states.

[kortilla]

Then why do so many Puerto Ricans not want to join as a state?

[cratermoon]

Not because they want to stay a US colony. Because they want to be independent.

[kortilla]

“ About 48 percent want Puerto Rico to become a state, 26 percent would rather remain a US territory, and 10 percent want full independence.”

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/11/15782544/p...