THEn of the most powerful lawsuits against former US President Donald Trump last week came from Stacey Plaskett of the United States Virgin Islands, the first delegate from an American territory to hold the position of impeachment manager.
However, Plaskett’s status meant that she could not vote for Trump’s impeachment because she had no vote in the House of Representatives plenary. The United States Virgin Islands have no representation in the Senate. Its residents cannot even vote for president.
The anomaly illuminates America’s long untreated colonial history that leaves five territories floating in constitutional limbo, its residents – most of them people of color – effectively treated as second-class citizens.
But with the momentum of last summer’s protests against racial injustice and the election of a Democratic president, one of those territories – Puerto Rico – aims to become the 51st state of the union. A parallel effort from Washington, District of Columbia (DC), is also closer than ever to its similar goal.
“It is extremely important to take a step back and look at who really has real representation in democracy,” he said. Stasha Rhodes, 51 to 51 campaign manager, an organization that fights for the creation of a state in DC. “If you think about all the players you mentioned, they all have a common thread: they are people of color. Does America have a true democracy if so many people of color are on the outside looking in and are not able to participate fully? “
There are five inhabited territories in the United States: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. In addition to American Samoa, people born in the territories are US citizens and pay federal taxes such as Medicare and social security, although not the federal income tax of local origin. Each territory sends a delegate to the Chamber who can debate legislation and participate in committees, but cannot actually vote.
Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony until 1898, when it fell under the control of the United States as part of the terms that ended the Spanish-American war. In 1917, the Jones Act granted Puerto Ricans US citizenship and in 1952 it became a US community – but still without voting rights in the US presidential election.
In the last half century, Puerto Rico held six non-binding referendums on its status and last November it voted 52% -47% in favor of the state, a cause driven by the complaint about the inadequate response of the federal government to Hurricane Maria in 2017. In one In an interview last week with Axios on HBO, Governor Pedro Pierluisi said that “Congress is morally obliged to respond” and predicted that a House bill will be presented next month.
George Laws Garcia, executive director of the Puerto Rico State Council, said: “You have a lot of unelected individuals making decisions on behalf of the people of Puerto Rico about the wishes, ideas and perspectives of local elected officials, which I think is basically blatant colonialism.
“We had Hurricane Maria and the earthquakes and now Covid and, in all those cases where Puerto Rico needs federal resources, federal support, federal action, we don’t have the capacity to hold the elected officials in Washington accountable for what they do because they never get Puerto Rico votes, and that includes the president as well as members of Congress. ”
It is Congress that would have to approve the creation of any new state for the first time since Hawaii in 1959.
Republicans see the move as an unconstitutional takeover that is likely to give Democrats two extra seats in the Senate. Martha McSally, then a senator from Arizona, told NBC News last year that if Puerto Rico gains statehood, Republicans “will never get the Senate back.”
Although Democrats control the House, a state bill would face far more difficult approval in the equally divided Senate, where 60 votes are needed to prevent a Republican obstructionist’s “death switch”. While progressives point to the racist history of the obstruction, Democrats Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema have already indicated a reluctance to eliminate it.
Garcia added: “The prospects for a state are incredibly challenging, but they have been challenging for all other territories that have already been admitted as a state. In my life, it is certainly the best possible chance that we could have. “
Almost all residents of Puerto Rico are Hispanic, while almost half of DC residents are African American. But, as the country’s capital, DC comes from a different historical, economic and constitutional perspective.
Its more than 700,000 residents – more than the populations of Vermont and Wyoming – pay more federal taxes per capita than any state. They won the right to vote in the 1961 presidential election, but still do not have a member with voting rights in the House or a voice in the Senate.
The movement to create a state in DC is bigger and better organized than ever. Last June, the House passed a bill that passed it, the first time that a Congressional Chamber presented a state measure in DC. There was never a chance in the Republican-controlled Senate, but the Black Lives Matter protests in Washington gave the cause more strength.
Rhodes from 51 to 51 said: “
Our most famous civil rights leaders were fighting for access to democracy. If you think of John Lewis and Martin Luther King, they were all fighting for access to voting and representation and, therefore, here in 2021, we are still fighting in Washington DC for equal representation and a clear chance of participation in democracy.
One major hurdle was removed when Trump, who had sworn that “DC will never be a state” because he would certainly elect Democratic senators, was defeated in the presidential election by Joe Biden, who expressed support for the campaign.
Then came the US Capitol insurrection on January 6. Nancy Pelosi, the mayor, told reporters earlier this month: “If the District of Columbia could operate as a state, (what) any governor can do is call the National Guard without obtaining permission from the federal government. It shouldn’t have to happen that way. “
Eleanor Holmes Norton, a non-voting member of DC in the House, reintroduced the state bill last month, while Democratic Senator Tom Carper of Delaware reintroduced his complementary bill that currently has 39 Democratic co-sponsors.
Meagan Hatcher-Mays, The director of democracy policy for the popular movement Indivisible, said: “It is a matter of basic justice. DC is not just government bureaucrats and lawyers. There are real people who live here, many of whom have been tasked with cleaning up the mess of the January 6 uprising. These are DC residents and have no vote in Congress, so I think it would be very easy for every Democrat in the Senate to say this is wrong. “
Hatcher-Mays, a former aide to Holmes Norton, added: “We need to remove the obstruction to make DC the 51st state. This is the closest we’ve ever been to getting a state in DC and, if it is going to happen, it will happen in this Congress, and it really has to happen, otherwise the Senate will be in trouble. It is not really representative of the country as a whole and making DC a state would help a lot to solve this problem. “
The issue shed light on the Senate’s democratic deficit, where small, predominantly white states have two seats each, weighing as much as vast and racially diverse states like California. In 2018, David Leonhardt, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, calculated that the Senate gives the average black American only 75% of the average white American representation, and the average Hispanic American only 55%.
Furthermore, in the Senate’s 232-year history, there were only 11 black senators and Plaskett was the only black woman elected in the impeachment trial. In this context, the Republicans’ opposition to the state condition was described as an attempt to protect the government from the white minority.
LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said: “At the end of the day, you have states from Utah to Montana and others that gained statehood from the start with fewer questions, less criticism than DC and Puerto Rico . It is a fundamental democratic flaw and it reeks of hypocrisy. The only reason it is a debate or even an issue is because of who makes up the majority of both places. “
An earlier candidacy for DC status was defeated in the Democratic-controlled House by a margin of almost 2-1 in 1993, with President Bill Clinton reluctant to get involved. This time, with Biden prioritizing racial justice, the mood is different. There is a sense that Democratic control of the White House, the Senate and the House offers a historic opportunity.
Donna Brazile, former acting chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said: “This is about making America a more perfect union. It is the oldest constitutional democracy in the world, yet some of its citizens do not have all the voting rights because of where they reside. If we are going to end racial injustice in America and talk about a new beginning for the country, we cannot get around old issues. “