Unity isn’t what it sounds like, but two new states would help
The main theme of Joe Biden’s inauguration as 46th President was unity. He repeatedly appealed to it, as did others who came to the podium. But what does it really mean?
It can’t mean unanimity. In a democracy, disagreement, dissent, and debate are the norm, not the exception. If “reaching across the aisle” is to be a reality, on most issues it will mean bringing a few from the other side over to vote with the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. Most Democrats and most Republicans won’t agree on most things, which is why we have Democrats and Republicans.
Nor can “unity” mean reconciling with the most extreme forces. No one is suggesting that the rioters of the 1/6 insurrection are part of whatever is meant by unity. Many are felons who belong in prison rather than in a political dialogue. Nor are those in Congress who de facto supported the insurrection with their votes against accepting the election results a force to be unified with. One of them has already filed impeachment charges against Biden, for his son’s alleged misdeeds. That won’t go anywhere, but there is no bridge to be built in that direction.
Biden did not specify what he meant by unity, but I think I know. He means agreement on the rules of the political game. That’s where things went haywire in the 2020 election and its aftermath. Republicans refused to accept many of the election procedures, even in states where they control the legislature and the electoral mechanism like Georgia and Arizona. After failing in more than five dozen court challenges, they continued to deny the validity of the election results. Their votes against certifying the electoral votes in the House and Senate were the last straw, especially following the attack on The Capitol.
The strife over electoral procedures and results is going to get worse, not better, despite Biden. Covid-19 created an obvious need for more readily accessible voting, by drop box and mail. Republicans will try to get rid of that accessibility before the 2022 election by requiring voter IDs, limiting absentee voting, and eliminating same-day registration. Reacting to one version of the Covid-19 relief bill the Democrats proposed, Trump himself said this:
The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,
The proof is in the pudding: Trump lost to Biden by almost 7 million votes, more than twice the margin of popular votes by which he lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Four years hence, given the aging of the Republican base and the Democratic predilections of younger people, that margin could be even larger. This makes the Electoral College, where a difference of 44,000 votes in three states could have given Trump victory, a growing problem.
But it can’t be solved readily. The more immediate, and less difficult, issue is the Senate, where the 50 Republican members represent 41 million fewer people than the 50 Democratic members. This is crazy. But there are some partial solutions readily available: admit the District of Columbia (whose 700,000 residents would be represented by two senators and one member of the House) and Puerto Rico (whose 3.2 million residents would be represented by two senators and four or five members of the House). Both the District and Puerto Rico have voted in favor of statehood. The District would become the [Frederick] Douglas Commonwealth (hence still DC).
It takes only a majority vote in both Houses to admit a new state, but in the Senate this proposition would face the filibuster, which can be overcome only with 60 (out of 100) votes. The filibuster has been abolished for particular issues (most Federal appointments and Supreme Court Justices), so why not do it for admission of new states to the Union? That is a narrowly defined category. There are four more US territories (other than PR), but the largest of them is Guam, with 168,000 people. Even if the other territories want statehood, their odds of getting 50% of the Senate to agree to it are minimal.
The House and Senate Democrats could do worse than put DC and PR statehood at the top of their priority list. Admission to the Union would partially redress gross inequities and give the residents of both places the voices in Congress that their numbers merit. The Republicans will vote against, but once admitted they will be compelled to do what they don’t do now: try to win the votes of nearly 4 million people they now ignore. That would be a most welcome kind of unity.
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The obstacles to statehood for the District of Columbia are greater, and for Puerto Rico far greater, than this post suggests.
The House of Representatives voted 232-180 for DC statehood in 2020, with all Republicans opposed and all but one Democrat in favor. Even though the Democratic majority is smaller now than it was last year, House support for DC statehood still seems certain.
Republicans with 50 senators are now the minority party in the Senate, but under Senate rules they can block a vote on any DC statehood bill by refusing to end debate, a maneuver called a filibuster.
Closing debate requires a supermajority of 60 senators. Changing Senate rules, however, requires only a simple majority of 51. The Democrats potentially have 51 votes—50 senators plus Vice President Kamala Harris, who in her constitutional role as president of the Senate may cast a vote to break a tie.
But even if all Democratic senators would support statehood for DC, it is not clear that all Democratic senators would support a change in the filibuster rules. And it seems likely that the Democratic leadership will not propose a change in Senate rules unless and until a) Republicans use the filibuster to block legislation that is vital to the president’s program, and b) the Democratic leadership can count on unanimous support from Democratic senators.
Statehood for the District is a relatively simple matter. The District, originally run directly by Congress, first secured a measure of home rule during the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. Home rule since then has expanded, and the federal role has shrunk, so that the District in many respects already functions as a state (although uniquely one with no counties or cities within its borders, so that its government performs both state and municipal functions). The District’s residents already vote in presidential elections (DC has three electoral votes), and District residents support statehood by a wide margin.
Statehood for Puerto Rico, by contrast, would require negotiation of large changes in the commonwealth’s relationship to the federal government, a kind of Brexit in reverse. Hurricanes and earthquakes have shattered the island’s infrastructure. The island has enormous debts and may be forced to declare bankruptcy, which the US Congress authorized it to do in 2019 legislation. The government has repeatedly been engulfed by scandal. The depth of support for statehood is uncertain—a 2017 referendum, boycotted by one of the island’s major parties, produced 97 percent support for statehood, but with a turnout of only 22 percent. Puerto Rican residents vote in US party primaries but not in the general presidential election, so statehood would change the electoral map.
Opposition to DC statehood is partisan: DC residents are overwhelmingly Democratic (and plurality Black), and Republicans would rather deny them representation than accept two more Democrats into the Senate and one more into the House. Opposition to statehood for Puerto Rico is likely bipartisan: the island’s financial problems, weak government, and frequent scandals, as well as nativist fears about official use of the Spanish language, are concerns found among Democrats as well as Republicans.
Democratic control of the presidency and both houses of Congress may end with the midterm elections of 2022. Statehood for the District is possible within this two-year window, but only barely. Statehood for Puerto Rico still seems a long way off.