Why is nothing being done about making the District of Columbia a State?

[randr]

This seems like a slam dunk for us that would draw more attention to Republican voter denial.

[brooklynite]

1. Because there aren't enough votes in the Senate.

[randr]

11. Just because the votes are not there is not reason not to talk about it

The Republicans have been running on ending Roe v Wade for half a century without the votes for it.
They are now on the brink of seeing their efforts pay off.
Issues need to be presented to keep the voters engaged.
Not pressing for issues is one reason many voters view the Democrats as weak.

[11 Bravo]

20. I live about one mile outside of the Beltway.

Trust me, it is talked abut ALL the time ... local TV news, the Post, other local papers ... but as stated upthread, the votes simply aren't there.

[Cha]

21. Good to know about the Local

news. TY

Even though the Senate won't help because of Obstructionist Fascists.. I would hope the Police Dept is gearing up for a possible invasion of Trucker Fuckers.

ETA.. Sorry, I misread the OP.. have the invasion of Trucker on my mind.

[11 Bravo]

22. I heard that. Those dickheads could seriously fuck up DC area traffic ...

(which is already pretty much of a mess).
If the Beltway or Rte 66 gets blocked, things could get ugly, quick.
If it happens on 66, I have two overpasses within a few minutes of my house. I think a few urine-filled balloons might find their way onto any little "protest".

[Cha]

30. I can imagine the traffic

is messy anyway in DC!

Yes, one's thoughts understandably go to what could be done to fuck with the Trucker Obstructors.

Did you happen to see that Vid of the "Ottawa balcony man roasting the 'Freedom' Convoy occupiers" ?. It was Priceless, imo!

Found it.. here's the Transcript.. with a link to the Video..

https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/suc6c8/transcript_of_the_ottawa_balcony_man_roasting_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Posted here on DU..

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216363646

[ProudMNDemocrat]

2. Senate and House Republicans OPPOSE adding more Democrats to the Senate/House ranks.

The same attitude regarding Puerto Rico.

[electric_blue68]

25. Altho if I remember correctly Puerto Rico is still pretty divided on that...

DC & Puerto Rico as States would be fine by me.


I guess we'd probably have arrange the stars in our flag in some circular form.
I only think about stuff like bc I'm an artist, and former graphic designer. 😄 👍

[cinematicdiversions]

26. Puerto Rican may end up being Republican anyway (Or at least split)

Large Hispanic population.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

27. The ones who did not catch the paper towels perhaps?

A people in crisis. What do they get instead of compassion and a real assurance that help is on the way? Paper towels flung at them.

[gab13by13]

3. The same reason we aren't adding 4 more SC justices.

[dem4decades]

4. Dc as a state, more SC justices? Pipe dreams, we can't even protect the right to vote.

[madville]

5. The other option to get the voters there representation

Is to make the non-federal government areas part of either Virginia or Maryland, that would solve the problem of them not having voting representation in Congress.

[sir pball]

6. That would require the consent of VA/MD

IIRC they've both explicitly said they're not interested. The only path is Statehood via the Senate and even if it were doable under reconciliation - Manchin's agin'it.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. Half of that is done.

The part of D.C. south (or west) of the Potomac was retroceded back to Virginia. Any further retrocession would probably become part of Maryland (again).

It might add one or two representatives for Maryland, but would have no effect on the Senate.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

7. Good question!

[Chainfire]

8. The real reason is because the black population is too high.

It DC were lily white and Republican it would have been a state decades ago.

[Voltaire2]

9. Senate dead end.

[FoxNewsSucks]

10. The answer to that, and other questions here, is

JOE FUCKING MANCHIN and his little helper, doing Moscow Mitch's work for him.

Republicons will never ever do the right thing, it's foolish to think they will. But we have the numerical control of the Senate, yet we still can't get what we want and need.

[brooklynite]

12. And what was the excuse in 1993 and 2009 when Manchin wasn't the deciding vote?

[Emile]

14. Senator Joseph Lieberman

[brooklynite]

15. "Senate Democrats Bring In Joe Lieberman As Ringer On D.C. Statehood"

TOPLINE Former Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a Democrat-turned-independent well known for his close relationships with Republicans, will help Democrats make the case for a D.C. statehood bill set to pass the House on Thursday, which faces long odds in the Senate.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/04/21/senate-democrats-bring-in-joe-lieberman-as-ringer-on-dc-statehood/?sh=18e150066f69

People really need to drop the lazy "we all know" stereotypes.

[Emile]

16. LOL that was lazy of me. At least I didn't

say to you yesterday about the dated picture, other than that's an eye opener.

Peace

[FoxNewsSucks]

17. Does that justify their anti-democratic behavior now?

[Emile]

13. All we need to do is win a bunch of

Republican senate seats.

[Iggo]

18. Because we need Manchin more than we need democracy.

[krispos42]

23. Because it's a dumb idea. The effort should have been spend on Puerto Rico.

Unfortunately it seems DC is locked into an intractable problem.

The reasonable thing would be to have the non-federal parts of DC returned to Maryland. Retrocession.

Except that neither Maryland nor District residents want that. District residents, I presume, don't want it because they think they can get statehood instead. Marylanders don't want it because the Republicans don't want an influx of Democrats and everybody seems happy enough with the status quo.

Making Puerto Rico a state is a great idea and probably politically workable. Puerto Rico would have two Senators and five Representatives, same as Connecticut. Because many Puerto Ricans are practicing Christians (even though Catholics outnumber Protestants 2:1), there is no clear indication that the people elected to Congress would be a solid lock for either Democrats or Republicans.

Making DC a state is a dumb idea. And of course, the House Democrats chose the stupid idea and lost. So now we don't get any new states. 65 years since we've added a state.

And don't give me any crap about population of DC versus Wyoming, either. Wyoming/Vermont/North Dakota/South Dakota have multiple cities and towns that are non-adjacent and require an overarching government entity to administer to them and the people, resources, and land spread out between the cities and towns. DC is one city of a few dozen square miles.

And yeah, if we had some sort of mechanism in the Constitution where states automatically were divided up when their populations got too big, we could have started out with one massive state called "Gigantor" between the Rockies and the Mississippi.

As parts of Gigantor became populated, they would have been automatically added as separate states until Gigantor was just a regular-sized state. But we don't have that. So in the 19th Century they just carved up the area into big empty states and waited for them to fill up.

It is not comparable. DC should be part of Maryland.

The only other thing I can think of is that you give DC a voting representative (instead of the current delegate) and make the vote for senators from Maryland to include the people of DC as well. So DC picks a rep (just like Wyoming) and the combined populations of DC and MD vote for two senators. But I don't see that happening either.

[Demsrule86]

24. It is a 50 50 Senate and the votes are not there.

[jmowreader]

28. There's only one way they'd do it

They would need to divide a largish red state that has at two large cities into two smaller ones to maintain the balance of power in the Senate. Tennessee would be good - west Tennessee’s capital would remain Nashville, and Knoxville would become East Tennessee’s.

This was done when Alaska and Hawaii were brought in. The PTB thought Alaska would be a blue state and Hawaii a red one, so admitted both at about the same time. (As we now know, one state did go bright red and the other solid blue, just not the ones they thought would do it.)

[Vinca]

29. Numbers. We don't have them.