THEOne of the strongest prosecutions of former US President Donald Trump last week came from Stacey Plaskett of the US Virgin Islands, the first delegate from American territory to hold the position of impeachment manager.
However, Plaskett’s status meant he could not vote for the removal of Trump because he has no vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. The US Virgin Islands has no representation in the Senate at all. Its inhabitants cannot even vote for president.
The anomaly illuminates the long unapproachable American colonial history, which leaves five territories floating in constitutional languages, their inhabitants – mostly people of color – effectively treated as second-class citizens.
But with the impetus of last summer’s protests against racial injustice and the election of a democratic president, one of those territories – Puerto Rico – aims to become the union’s 51st state. A parallel effort by Washington, District of Columbia (DC), is also closer than ever to its similar goal.
“It’s incredibly important to take a step back and look at who actually has real representation in a democracy,” he said. Stasha Rhodes, 51 for 51 campaign manager, an organization that pushes for the DC state. “If you think about all the players you mentioned, they all have one thing in common: they are all people of color. Does America have a true democracy if so many people of color sit outside and watch and cannot fully participate? ”
There are five inhabited American territories: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Apart from American Samoa, people born in the territories are American citizens and pay federal taxes, such as Medicare and social security, although not federal taxes on local income. Each territory sends a delegate to the Chamber, who can debate the legislation and participate in committees, but cannot actually vote.
Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony until 1898, when it fell under US control as part of the terms that ended the Spanish-American War. In 1917, the Jones Act granted US citizenship in Puerto Rico, and in 1952 it became a common state of the United States – but without the right to vote in the US presidential election.
In the last half century, Puerto Rico has held six non-binding referendums on its status, and in November last year voted 52% -47% in favor of statehood, a cause fueled by dissatisfaction with the federal government’s inadequate response to Hurricane Maria in 2017. In an interview with Axios on HBO last week, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said “Congress is morally obligated to answer” and predicted that a House bill would be introduced next month.
George Laws Garcia, executive director of Puerto Rico Statehood Council, said: “You have a lot of individuals who have not chosen to make decisions on behalf of the people of Puerto Rico about the wishes and ideas and perspectives of local elected officials, which I think is practically flagrant colonialism.
“We had Hurricane Maria and the earthquakes and now Covid, and in all these situations where Puerto Rico needs federal resources, federal support, federal action, we don’t have the capacity to hold Washington elected officials accountable for what they do because they don’t never get votes from Puerto Rico and that includes the president as well as members of Congress. ”
Congress should approve the creation of any new state for the first time in Hawaii in 1959.
Republicans passed the measure as a takeover of unconstitutional power that could give Democrats two extra seats in the Senate. Martha McSally, then a senator for Arizona, told NBC News last year that if Puerto Rico wins statehood, Republicans “will never get the Senate back.”
Although Democrats control the House, a state bill will face a much tougher passage in the uniformly divided Senate, where 60 votes are needed to counter the “switch to kill” a Republican filibuster. Despite progressives pointing to the filibuster’s racist history, key Democrats Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema have already indicated they are unwilling to eliminate it.
Garcia added: “The state’s prospects are incredibly challenging, but they have been challenging for any other territory that has ever been admitted as a state. In my life, there are definitely the best possible chances we could have. ”
Almost all Puerto Ricans are Hispanic, while nearly half of DCs are African American. But as the nation’s capital, DC comes from a different historical, economic, and constitutional perspective.
Its residents of more than 700,000 people – larger than the populations of Vermont and Wyoming – pay more per capita in federal income taxes than any state. They won the right to vote in the 1961 presidential election, but do not yet have a voting member in the House or a vote in the Senate.
The movement for the DC state is bigger and better organized than ever. In June last year, the House passed a bill that approved it, the first time a congressional chamber has passed a DC state measure. He never had a chance in the Republican-controlled Senate, but the Black Lives Matter protests in Washington gave the cause more power.
Rhodes of 51 for 51 said: “
Our most famous civil rights leaders have fought for access to democracy. If you think of John Lewis and Martin Luther King, they were all fighting for access to voting and access to representation, so here in 2021, we are still fighting in Washington DC for equal representation and a clear chance to participate in democracy. ”
A key hurdle was removed when Trump, who had promised that “DC will never be a state because he would be sure to elect Democratic senators, was defeated in the presidential election by Joe Biden, who voiced support for campaign.
Then came the US Chapter insurrection on January 6. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters earlier this month: “If the District of Columbia could function as a state, (what) any governor can do is call the National Guard without permission from the federal government. That shouldn’t be the case. ”
Eleanor Holmes Norton, a non-voting member of the DC in the House, reintroduced the state bill last month, while Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware reintroduced the accompanying state bill, which currently has 39 Democratic sponsors.
Meagan Hatcher-Mays, the director of democracy policy for the Indivisible basic movement, said: “It is a matter of basic correctness. DCs are not all bureaucrats and government lawyers. There are real people living here, many of whom are tasked with clearing up the mess of the January 6 uprising. They are residents of the DC and do not have a vote in Congress at all, so it would seem to me that it would be quite easy for every Democrat in the Senate to say that he is wrong. “
Hatcher-Mays, a former aide to Holmes Norton, added: “We need to eliminate the filibuster to make DC the 51st state. This is the closest situation we have ever had to getting the state of DC and, if it happens, it will happen in this Congress and it really has to happen or else the Senate has problems. It is indeed under-represented in the country as a whole, and the transformation of DC into a state would go a long way in solving this problem. ”
The issue has shed light on the Senate’s democratic deficit, where small, predominantly white states get two seats each, carrying as much weight as vast, racially diverse states such as California. In 2018, David Leonhardt, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, calculated that the Senate offers black American representatives only 75% more representation than average white Americans, and only 55% average Hispanic Americans.
Moreover, in the 232-year history of the Senate, there were only 11 black senators, and Plaskett was the only black woman elected to the indictment. In such a context, Republican opposition to the state has been described as an attempt to protect the rule of white minorities.
LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter, said: “At the end of the day, you have states from Utah to Montana to others that have gained statehood from the beginning with fewer questions, with fewer critics than DC and Puerto Rico. It is a fundamental democratic flaw and smells of hypocrisy. The only reason it is a debate or even a question is because it is the majority of both places. ”
A previous bid for the state of DC was defeated in the House controlled by Democrats by a margin of almost 2-1 in 1993, with President Bill Clinton reluctant to commit. This time, with Biden making racial justice a priority, the mood is different. It is felt that the Democrats’ control over the White House, the Senate and the House offers a historic opportunity.
Donna Brazile, former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, said: “It’s about making America a more perfect union. It is the oldest constitutional democracy in the world and yet some of its citizens do not have full voting rights because of where they live. If we put an end to racial injustice in America and talk about a new beginning for the country, we cannot ignore the old problems. “