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New states
In yesterday's New York Times, Susan Rice calls for D.C. statehood, which she points out has passed all the usual tests and awaits only the passage of a law by both houses of Congress and a President's signature. Which won't happen this year, obviously, but it could quite plausibly happen next year. Although any D.C. statehood law would probably exclude the area around the White House, which means it wouldn't prevent the kind of nonsense that happened in Lafayette Park a few days ago.
It's seemed to me for a number of years that if D.C. residents want the political representation that most U.S. citizens take for granted, there's a compromise approach that might not be DOA with Republicans: merge D.C. into Maryland. (Maryland already has a Washington County, but apparently not a city, town, or village named Washington, so no name collision.) D.C. residents would gain a say in the election of two Senators, and they'd gain one new voting member of the House, but D.C. would lose two of its three electoral votes, which are currently guaranteed-blue, and that might be enough of a sweetener for Republicans to go for it.
Of course, for Puerto Rico there's no such compromise possible, since Puerto Rico, with over four times the population of DC (about the same as Oregon), has no electoral votes to trade away. It too would be guaranteed-blue, at least in the current political environment, but it's 70% Catholic so Republicans could conceivably win elections there if they refocused on social issues rather than racial ones.
BTW, the Constitution doesn't specify that there must be a Federal-government enclave separate from the States, only that if there is one, Congress has exclusive legislative control over it.
It's seemed to me for a number of years that if D.C. residents want the political representation that most U.S. citizens take for granted, there's a compromise approach that might not be DOA with Republicans: merge D.C. into Maryland. (Maryland already has a Washington County, but apparently not a city, town, or village named Washington, so no name collision.) D.C. residents would gain a say in the election of two Senators, and they'd gain one new voting member of the House, but D.C. would lose two of its three electoral votes, which are currently guaranteed-blue, and that might be enough of a sweetener for Republicans to go for it.
Of course, for Puerto Rico there's no such compromise possible, since Puerto Rico, with over four times the population of DC (about the same as Oregon), has no electoral votes to trade away. It too would be guaranteed-blue, at least in the current political environment, but it's 70% Catholic so Republicans could conceivably win elections there if they refocused on social issues rather than racial ones.
BTW, the Constitution doesn't specify that there must be a Federal-government enclave separate from the States, only that if there is one, Congress has exclusive legislative control over it.