Should we give US Territories American Samoa,Guam,Puerto Rico,Northern Mariana Island and

[nkpolitics1212]

US Virgin Islands the ability to vote in the US Presidential Election like the District of Columbia.
American Samoa,Guam,Puerto Rico,Northern Mariana Island and US Virgin Islands each get 3 electoral votes in the electoral college increasing the Electoral vote total from 538 to 553 plus give Puerto Rico another 4 electoral votes due to population. 557evs.
Should we give US House Members from District of Columbia,American Samoa,Guam,Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Island and US Virgin Islands voting power in the US House. Total number of seats in the US House increases from 435 to 445. This gives the Democratic Party 10 additional seats in the US House.
Should we give District of Columbia,American Samoa,Guam,Puerto Rico,Northern Mariana Island and Virgin Islands their 2 US Senators increasing the total number of US Senators from 100 to 112. Democrats could end up with 60 seats in the US Senate.

[hlthe2b]

1. yes

I have always thought it wrong to have a "tiered" system of citizenship. WRONG. They are citizens, they should be equal.

[shenmue]

2. Statehood

[Hekate]

3. We should abolish the Electoral College

[Nevernose]

4. Half of Am Samoans don't even get citizenship

Seriously. There's a SCOTUS decision from 1915 or so that says they're "not evolved enough yet for citizenship" but might be in the future.

There was a John Oliver on it a year or two ago.

[csziggy]

12. They are "American nationals" but have to apply for citizenship

Unless they have an American citizen as a parent:

Nationality

People born in American Samoa – including those born on Swains Island – are American nationals,[44] but are not American citizens unless one of their parents is a U.S. citizen. In an amicus curiae brief filed in federal court, Samoan Congressman Faleomavaega supported the legal interpretation that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not extend birthright citizenship to United States nationals born in unincorporated territories.[45] U.S. nationals have the right to reside in the U.S. (i.e., the 50 states and District of Columbia), and may apply for citizenship by naturalization after three months of residency by passing a test in English and civics, and by taking an oath of allegiance to the United States.[46]

Under Article II and Amendment XXIII of the U.S. Constitution, only states and the District of Columbia may participate in the election of the president and vice president of the United States. Samoans are entitled to elect one non-voting delegate to the United States House of Representatives.[44] Their delegate since 1989 had been Democrat Eni Faleomavaega. In the 2014 Midterm Election, Republican Aumua Amata Radewagen defeated Eni Faleomavaega, becoming the first female and first Republican representative of American Samoa.[47] They also send delegates to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Samoa#Nationality

So why are: Puerto Ricans automatically citizens when American Samoans not?

Puerto Ricans "were collectively made U.S. citizens" in 1917 as a result of the Jones-Shafroth Act.[162] U.S. citizens residing in Puerto Rico cannot vote for the U.S. president, though both major parties, Republican and Democratic, run primary elections in Puerto Rico to send delegates to vote on a presidential candidate. Since Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory (see above) and not a U.S. state, the United States Constitution does not fully enfranchise US citizens residing in Puerto Rico.[142][163] (See also: "Voting rights in Puerto Rico&quot .

Only fundamental rights under the American federal constitution and adjudications are applied to Puerto Ricans. Various other U.S Supreme Court decisions have held which rights apply in Puerto Rico and which ones do not. Puerto Ricans have a long history of service in the U.S. Armed Forces and, since 1917, they have been included in the U.S. compulsory draft whensoever it has been in effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico#Political_status

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Or maybe

they should be given to another country that would take better care of them.

Actually, making states of them or at least giving them full voting rights would be the way to go.

[Glorfindel]

6. Yes, absolutely. Since we can't abolish the US Senate (dammit!), this would be the next best thing.

The College of Cardinals is more democratic than the US Senate.

[Calista241]

7. There has to be a benefit to statehood. Otherwise,

Everyone would want to be territories and reap all the benefits and having fewer obligations.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. Statehood should be on the table for all of them, the former Pacific territories and eventually Cuba

Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands become a State.

Guam, Samoa and Mariana Islands become a State and the former Pacific territories should be given an opportunity to hold referendums for inclusion in that Pacific state.

The door should also be open to Cuba in the future.

[roamer65]

9. They should at least have the status of D.C. at a bare minimum.

Electoral votes.

PR should have been a state a long time ago.

[Not Ruth]

10. "You dont fight injustice by asking to become part of the system that committed the injustice....."

This is also why Kaepernick did not register to vote. Not voting is considered a form of resistance.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/30/us/san-juan-mayor-cruz.html


Ms. Cruz said she had no time for petty politics when there were lives to save. “Sometimes you have to shake the tree in order to make things happen,” she said. “And if that has a political cost, I will take it, as long as it saves lives.”

Her post-hurricane style has been at stark odds with that of Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló, who praised the Trump administration’s response this week. “Whenever we have an ask for this effort, they have delivered,” said Mr. Rosselló, a member of the New Progressive Party, which favors Puerto Rican statehood.

It may be that Mr. Rosselló, a first-term governor, has little choice but to sing the administration’s praises because criticizing the unpredictable president could affect the delivery of aid to the island.

That has left Ms. Cruz to play the role of Puerto Rico’s chief critic of the recovery effort.

Censuring Trump certainly jibes with Ms. Cruz’s liberal worldview, but in some ways the mayor can seem as complex and contradictory as the neither-fish-nor-fowl United States commonwealth she calls home.

She is a product of both the island and the mainland, a former star in the blue-chip world of corporate America who is beloved in the poorest barrios of the Puerto Rican capital. She is also an unapologetic supporter of Oscar López Rivera, the Puerto Rican militant associated with a group that carried out a deadly campaign of bombings in New York and other cities in the 1970s and 1980s.

Ms. Cruz, according to a biography on the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce website, was an honor student and track-and-field star on the island who went on to receive degrees from Boston University and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She later worked as a human resources director for companies including Colgate-Palmolive, Banco Popular and Scotiabank, as well as the Treasury Department.

She was hardly a well-known figure when she ran for mayor in 2012 against a 12-year incumbent, Jorge Santini, who misjudged the threat and seemed to belittle her by calling her “esa señora,” or that woman. He also characterized her as a Venezuelan-style socialist. Ms. Cruz, meanwhile, stitched together a coalition of students; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups; and people simply fed up with the status quo, and won. She was re-elected handily in 2016 against a lackluster opponent.

Ms. Cruz is a member of the Popular Democratic Party, which supports maintaining the island’s commonwealth status, rather than statehood. While it is in the minority in both state houses, it includes centrist and center-right members. But Ms. Cruz is firmly ensconced in the party’s small left wing. She allowed for the unionization of San Juan government health workers, and this year she supported a strike led by university students who opposed strict austerity measures after the island, staggering under $74 billion in debt, was forced to declare a form of bankruptcy.

In June, Ms. Cruz explained her opposition to statehood to a reporter from The Guardian. “You don’t fight injustice by asking to become part of the system that committed the injustice against you in the first place,” she told the paper. “That’s like a freed slave striving to become a slave owner.”

This year, the mayor offered Mr. López, the militant nationalist, a job with the city of San Juan after he was freed from prison in May, after 35 years behind bars. Mr. López said he would not take the job, but the news spurred heated criticism of the mayor on talk radio and elsewhere.

Critics say that the quality of life has not improved much under Ms. Cruz. “The first four years she didn’t do anything,” said Irene Junco, 65, a San Juan pizzeria owner. The mayor’s emotional criticism of Mr. Trump, Ms. Junco said, seemed to her like a way to ramp up a run for governor.

“I think she’s taking advantage of the moment, like all politicians, for her own benefit,” Ms. Junco said.

Some in the streets of San Juan had not even heard of the spat between their mayor and the president, given the hobbled communications on the island. But a few said they were proud of her for voicing their frustrations.

“She’s done what she can under the circumstances, and the circumstances are difficult,” said Hugo Figueroa, 28, a systems engineer. “We understand that it is hard to get aid because we’re on an island. But there’s been a lack of rapid action from the government.

Ms. Cruz’s command center is in the Roberto Clemente Coliseum, where she, her husband, her stepdaughter and 689 others waited for the storm to pass. She said she was terrified. At one point, the roof started to wobble.

On Saturday, Ms. Cruz read a text from another city mayor that read “total desperation.” He had no water.

“Some of the mayors that I have been able to reach or have reached me are scared of voicing their concern, because they are concerned if they do, they won’t even get a bottle of water,” she said. “That is a sad situation in a democratic society when fear takes a hold of people, then you know something isn’t working.”

Now, she said, was not the time for “political calculation” or even “political correctness.”

“If President Trump were to say, ‘I’m going to go to San Juan to see that nasty mayor,’ I would receive him with open arms, because democracy is larger than me,” she said. “He was democratically elected. He represents the United States of North America and he deserves all the respect that office brings with it.”

Waldemar Serrano Burgos contributed research in San Juan. Lizette Alvarez contributed reporting from Miami.

[B2G]

11. Maybe they should have a say in it.

What do they want?

[Jake Stern]

13. Puerto Ricans have consistently voted down statehood for the status quo

Officially it's due to concerns that, among other things, statehood would give English a high position over Spanish and cause an erosion of Puerto Rican culture. That and the independence movement tells it's supporters to vote Commonwealth, which helps overcome pro-statehood votes.

In reality, most Puerto Ricans don't pay federal income tax which they would have to under statehood.

[eppur_se_muova]

14. If Dems will gain, Repugs will oppose to their dying breath. nt