Law DC Statehood: Manchin comes out against, says constitutional amendment needed

Should Washington D.C. receive statehood status?


  • Total voters
    126
I agree to an extent: American Samoa, Guam, Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands should certainly be states. Interestingly, Samoa has the highest ratio of people in the US military than any US state.

But, I'm not sold on DC statehood. It was created as a entity to stay as the seat of government and that's it.

As I've stated in another thread, Arlington, Virginia used to be a part of DC in the 1800s. But, then they were reabsorbed into Virginia. Now, they have a voting member in the House of Representatives and have representation in the Senate.

The land north of the Potomac could certainly do the same. They can be reabsorbed into Maryland. That way, they will get a voice in the senate and Elanor Holmes Norton would become a voting member of the House.

I don’t know about the others but samoa likely wouldn’t want statehood based on some of the laws they have that wouldn’t fly as a state. Property owners have be at least half “Samoan blood” to prevent foreigners buying up property.
 
I don’t know about the others but samoa likely wouldn’t want statehood based on some of the laws they have that wouldn’t fly as a state. Property owners have be at least half “Samoan blood” to prevent foreigners buying up property.
Good point. That is a law that would not fly in the US courts.
 
Give DC back to Maryland they say ..

Okay, while we are at it, lets also give West Virginia back to Virginia. North Dakota back to South Dakota. (If people are really interested in power grabs, check out why the Dakota's were separated to begin with.)

But alas, that would require consistency in political thinking.
 
I don’t know about the others but samoa likely wouldn’t want statehood based on some of the laws they have that wouldn’t fly as a state. Property owners have be at least half “Samoan blood” to prevent foreigners buying up property.

Most of Puerto Ricos gun laws would go out the window with the quickness as well, as they have a slew of them that would get nuked into another dimension by the courts. I actually know a few people from there who have said flat out their families don't want statehood based solely on that, as they have enough crime problems as it is.
 
2 Democratic Senators from DC so the Senate will never approve it.

DC ain't big enough to be a state, should just make it a part of Maryland if anything.
So size matters to you.
 
Give DC back to Maryland they say ..

Okay, while we are at it, lets also give West Virginia back to Virginia. North Dakota back to South Dakota. (If people are really interested in power grabs, check out why the Dakota's were separated to begin with.)

But alas, that would require consistency in political thinking.
Weak.
The real power grab move was the south insisting on counting slaves as 3/5 a person so they could get more representation in Congress and then using that additional power to ensure that they could keep the slaves.
 
Yep, it's another naked power grab by zealous Democrats. I'm sure everyone recalls all the talk of adding more Supreme Court seats when Republicans established a clear majority. If Democrats can't win back the Senate legitimately they'll find other ways to give themselves more power.
So let’s combine the Dakotas and the Virginias because the were split to gain a senate majority.
 
GOP scared because they know that they are a dying breed. They can only suppress the vote for so long but they will never stop progress.
 
I wonder why Dems are only doing this for DC and not PR as well. Hmm...
 
Great power grab to remain in power for ever. Also with all the political persecution we've seen for last 4 years, it's quite obvious US is anything but a functioning Democracy.

With only hope eventually the democrat party will have in fighting and split into two.
The attempted power grab was by Trump and his cronies trying to overthrow democracy.
 
I wonder what weird shit they'll put on the flag when it gets redesigned.
 
GOP scared because they know that they are a dying breed. They can only suppress the vote for so long but they will never stop progress.

Progress =/= Filling up the country with enough backwards, poor foreigners to overturn the will of the native population
 
And Manchin has pretty much killed the shot at DC statehood at least for the time being.

Manchin says he does not support D.C. statehood bill
Politico

Sen. Joe Manchin on Friday said that he did not support the D.C. statehood bill, a blow to advocates pushing to make it the 51st state after the legislation passed the House last week.

"If Congress wants to make D.C. a state, it should propose a constitutional amendment ... and let the people of America vote," the West Virginia Democrat told Hoppy Kercheval of West Virginia's MetroNews in a radio interview.
 
And Manchin has pretty much killed the shot at DC statehood at least for the time being.

Manchin says he does not support D.C. statehood bill
Politico
I think far left dems are overplaying their hand and purple state/district dems are feeling a bit sabotaged. It went from "come on, man, I'm moderate Joe" to 3 months in spending $10 trillion, massive tax increases, border crisis, trying to pack the courts, trying to give the most corrupt city in the country 2 senators, and it's going to cost the poor purple dems their elections.
 
Don't you need 2/3 of state legislatures to ratify?
 
Give DC back to Maryland they say ..

Okay, while we are at it, lets also give West Virginia back to Virginia. North Dakota back to South Dakota. (If people are really interested in power grabs, check out why the Dakota's were separated to begin with.)

But alas, that would require consistency in political thinking.

What the hell, have you even completed High School? I'm pretty sure the actual historical reason for the formation of the two Dakotas and Virginias was covered by the 10th grade.

Here's a non-partisan refresher:
_
Now You Know: Why Are There Two Dakotas?
BY MERRILL FABRY | JULY 14, 2016

north-dakota-south-dakota-map-1881.jpg

The Dakota Territory was formed in 1861—including what we now think of as North Dakota and South Dakota, as well as parts of Wyoming and Montana—and took on the boundaries of the two Dakotas in 1868. It was entirely expected that such territories would eventually join the U.S. as states after meeting certain requirements, like hitting a population count of more than 60,000 and drafting a state constitution.

So why did the two halves of the territory reach statehood separately?

Steven Bucklin, a professor of history at the University of South Dakota, points to regional differences in trade routes and population size as the two main factors. Those differences, with the addition of some territorial government politics, meant the populations felt some resentment for each other. Or, as Kimberly Porter, a history professor at the University of North Dakota, puts it, “the south half did not like the north half.”

(While we’re going to focus on why there are two Dakotas, it’s worth noting that they’re not the only states to share a name—the Carolinas separated in the first half of the 18th century, and West Virginia split from Virginia during the civil war because delegates from the western part of the state opposed secession.)

In terms of population size, the two parts of the territory were different from the beginning. There were always more people in the southern part of Dakota territory, which grew from about 10,000 in 1870 to about over 98,000 in 1880. By that point, according to the U.S. census, northern Dakota was home to only about 37,000 people. That meant that southern Dakota had the population necessary to join as a state, all on its own, years before the northern part of the state did.

Perhaps not coincidentally, there was also a bit of a personality difference between the two regions: the south thought the north was a bit disreputable, Porter says, “too much controlled by the wild folks, cattle ranchers, fur traders” and too frequently the site of conflict with the indigenous population.

Meanwhile, a year after the Dakota territory was formed, the Homestead Act passed. This new law encouraged settlement in the West, as did railroads that connected new farmers to markets for their crops. But the trade routes supported by these railroads connected North and South Dakota to different commercial hubs, says Bucklin. The northern part of Dakota territory became more closely tied to Minneapolis-St. Paul, via Fargo and Bismarck. In contrast, the southern counties along the Missouri and Big Sioux rivers were more closely tied by trade to Sioux City, and from there to Omaha or over to Chicago. These diverging economic ties left residents of different parts of the territory less connected to each other.

In terms of politics, the way the territory system was set up, legislators were appointed by the federal government in Washington, D.C., and tended to remain in the region only while they served their terms. The larger population of the southern region began to resent those “carpetbaggers,” Bucklin says, but the northerners tended to emphasize that it was cheaper to be a territory, with the feds funding a wide range of state functions. It didn’t help that the state legislators were sometimes notoriously corrupt—like Nehemiah Ordway, who moved the capital in 1883. “He essentially helped steal the state territorial capital from Yankton, now in South Dakota, to Bismarck, now in North Dakota” says Porter. The capital grab, which moved the capital even farther from the majority of the population, only fueled more resentment from the south.

By that point, South Dakotans had the necessary population for statehood and quickly moved to become an independent state. However, many attempts to form an independent state failed, Porter says, as the federal response was “either do it as one very large state, Dakota, or wait until you have enough people on both sides to be two separate states.”

That second option would play out before the decade was over. But why did they both choose to keep the name “Dakota”?

South Dakota wanted to be called simply “Dakota” Porter says, and “then the northern half would become either the territory of Pembina, which is a community right on the Canadian border, or else they thought we could be called the territory and ultimately state of Lincoln, as in the president.” But Porter says Dakota had already become a trademark of sorts—a source of quality products, “like California raisins or Florida orange juice”—and neither side wanted to give it up.

On Nov. 2, 1889 President Benjamin Harrison signed the papers to admit North and South Dakota as two separate states, along with Montana and Washington. Though North Dakota is generally considered the 39th state to South Dakota’s 40th state, it’s actually unclear which one was admitted first says Bucklin: “apparently President Harrison shuffled the paperwork first,” and signed the documents blindly.

https://time.com/4377423/dakota-north-south-history-two/
 
Last edited:
Weak.
The real power grab move was the south insisting on counting slaves as 3/5 a person so they could get more representation in Congress and then using that additional power to ensure that they could keep the slaves.
But I thought the Republicans back then were actually Democrats, and the Democrats back then were actually Republicans. Unless you want to support the party of slavery and the KKK...
 
Back
Top