Petition created to merge Dakotas into one state

[mgk920]

And the original expectations from the 1940s and 1950s regarding Alaska and Hawaii were that Alaska would be solid Democrats and Hawaii would be bedrock Republican.

Mike

[Tonytone]

And the original expectations from the 1940s and 1950s regarding Alaska and Hawaii were that Alaska would be solid Democrats and Hawaii would be bedrock Republican.

Mike

Hawaii is Republican? Im shocked


iPhone

[Roadgeekteen]

And the original expectations from the 1940s and 1950s regarding Alaska and Hawaii were that Alaska would be solid Democrats and Hawaii would be bedrock Republican.

Mike

Hawaii is Republican? Im shocked


iPhone

Was, it's democrat now.

[Brandon]

And the original expectations from the 1940s and 1950s regarding Alaska and Hawaii were that Alaska would be solid Democrats and Hawaii would be bedrock Republican.

Mike

Hawaii is Republican? Im shocked

States can and do change from R to D and D to R over time.

/IMHO, Hawai'i should've become a state in 1899-1900.

[KeithE4Phx]

/IMHO, Hawai'i should've become a state in 1899-1900.

Even if anyone had considered it, I doubt it would have been acted on until the last four mainland territories (Oklahoma/Indian Country, New Mexico, and Arizona) were admitted as states.

[Bruce]

But both states are very Republican.

Merge Connecticut and Rhode Island as a counterbalance.

Alternatively, split off the state of Jefferson from California/Oregon as they really don't want to belong to either anyway and lean Republican.  I feel for those who live near the coast and have to deal with those who have had brain cells corroded by saltwater.

Just so you know, the Republicans from the Northwest have historically been much different (and more "liberal" leaning) than Republicans in other regions. One of our last Republican governors was very big on immigration, an income tax, public transit, and bipartisanship...all very foreign to the GOP of today.

[hbelkins]

States can and do change from R to D and D to R over time.

Kentucky is a prime example. Two decades ago, we were solidly D. The state voted for Bill Clinton twice, and the governor and both houses of the state legislature were solidly D. R's were beginning to make some inroads into federal races, starting with Mitch McConnell's election back in 1984 and Jim Bunning a few years later. Except for a handful of traditionally R counties in the south-central and what I will describe as the "near southeast" (the old 5th District from when Kentucky had seven congressional districts) and in the far northern part of the state, D's dominated local races.

Now, the governor is an R, there are GOP supermajorities in both houses of the legislature, six of seven US representatives are Republicans, and for the first time, the majority of county judges-executive (the top official in each county) are Republicans. And voter registration, which for years was close to a 2:1 advantage for the Ds, is now darn close to 50-50. It certainly took long enough.

[vdeane]

- Puerto Rico should not become a state until its economy is at least on the level of the poorest state (currently it is about half that).  As a "commonwealth" (that is a poorly translated term, the literal Spanish is better "freely associated state" ) it can pick and choose which federal programs can work there and which do not, as a state every law would automatically apply, which would destroy its economy.

Meanwhile, the fact that not every law applied is also the reason why Puerto Rico was able to get into so much debt.

Honestly, I'm not sure how this whole idea of "not all laws apply here" makes any kind of sense.  At the very least, such things should be limited to whole system discontinuities like mainland China vs. Hong Kong and Macau or American Samoa vs. the rest of the US.  Especially with respect to the Constitution... no amendment has an "except unincorporated territories or near borders" clause, so the exceptions are IMO unconstitutional.

[hotdogPi]

six of seven US representatives are Republicans

There is no 7th district, and you even implied that in the previous paragraph.

[KEVIN_224]

and New Hampshire/Vermont

Really?  Hell, I could make an argument that Vermont should be SPLIT 3 ways...not merged.

Split three ways? But Vermont is already the third smallest state.

Actually, Connecticut is the third smallest state, ahead of Rhode Island and Delaware. Vermont is 45th out of 50.

[vdeane]

and New Hampshire/Vermont

Really?  Hell, I could make an argument that Vermont should be SPLIT 3 ways...not merged.

Split three ways? But Vermont is already the third smallest state.

Actually, Connecticut is the third smallest state, ahead of Rhode Island and Delaware. Vermont is 45th out of 50.

In land area.  In population, Vermont is second smallest (if excluding DC).

[froggie]

^ Per Census estimates, D.C. overtook Vermont in population in 2012 so Vermont is the 2nd smallest in population even if you include D.C.

[1995hoo]

....

Back on topic: Puerto Rico, DC, Guam, and American Samoa should all be admitted at states, given the decades-long bullshit they've had to put up with as territories.

American Samoa can't be a state due to some quirky agreements that they want to keep the islands culture intact. American Samoa residents aren't even citizens.

That last sentence is not entirely accurate. For the most part, people born and residing in American Samoa are US "nationals," not US citizens, but there are exceptions. The most notable has to do with if the person has a parent who's a US citizen. One of the Democrats who's said she's running for president in 2020–Tulsi Gabbard, who is presently a congressman representing Hawaii–was born in American Samoa and is eligible as a natural-born citizen because her father (maybe her mother too, I'm not sure) was a US citizen.


(Edited to fix mangled quotes)

[hbelkins]

six of seven US representatives are Republicans

There is no 7th district, and you even implied that in the previous paragraph.

Kentucky lost a congressional district after the 1990 census. We had seven districts, now there are six.

[Roadgeekteen]

....

Back on topic: Puerto Rico, DC, Guam, and American Samoa should all be admitted at states, given the decades-long bullshit they've had to put up with as territories.

American Samoa can't be a state due to some quirky agreements that they want to keep the islands culture intact. American Samoa residents aren't even citizens.

That last sentence is not entirely accurate. For the most part, people born and residing in American Samoa are US "nationals," not US citizens, but there are exceptions. The most notable has to do with if the person has a parent who's a US citizen. One of the Democrats who's said she's running for president in 2020–Tulsi Gabbard, who is presently a congressman representing Hawaii–was born in American Samoa and is eligible as a natural-born citizen because her father (maybe her mother too, I'm not sure) was a US citizen.


(Edited to fix mangled quotes)

I think that anyone with a us citizen parent is natural born no matter where they are born.

[kphoger]

I think that anyone with a us citizen parent is natural born no matter where they are born.

In general, yes, but there are exceptions.  Basically, if only one parent is a US citizen, then that parent must have lived in the USA for a certain amount of time prior to the child's birth in order for the child to be a citizen.  The amount of time required depends on the status of the spouse:  1 year if the spouse is a US national, 5 years since age 14 if not.  If the child's parents aren't married, then things get even more complicated.

[vdeane]

What's the reason for it being different if the parents are married or not?  One's parents are one's parents, regardless of marriage.

[1995hoo]

What's the reason for it being different if the parents are married or not?  One's parents are one's parents, regardless of marriage.

I assume the reason has to do with the obvious situation of a male US citizen having a one-night stand, knocking up a noncitizen woman and getting her pregnant, and then disappearing. Certainly it's well-known that soldiers fighting abroad have fathered children in other countries, and those children generally are not US citizens (nor is there really any logical reason why they should be).

I believe the general rule used to be similar to the rule Judaism uses–you looked to the mother's citizenship, and if she is a US citizen, her child will be too. I assume part of the reason for that was that it's not reasonable to disqualify a child from being a citizen simply because his mother happens to be abroad when he is born, given that there are plenty of legitimate reasons why she might be abroad (either planned or unexpectedly). The same logic doesn't apply if a man gets a woman pregnant.

But I think the rules have been modified in the past few years. I haven't taken the time to sort through this: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/us-citizenship/Acquisition-US-Citizenship-Child-Born-Abroad.html

Edited to add: Glancing through that page I linked, it sounds like whatever I remember reading before was a major oversimplification.

[sparker]

But both states are very Republican.

Merge Connecticut and Rhode Island as a counterbalance.

Alternatively, split off the state of Jefferson from California/Oregon as they really don't want to belong to either anyway and lean Republican.  I feel for those who live near the coast and have to deal with those who have had brain cells corroded by saltwater.

Just so you know, the Republicans from the Northwest have historically been much different (and more "liberal" leaning) than Republicans in other regions. One of our last Republican governors was very big on immigration, an income tax, public transit, and bipartisanship...all very foreign to the GOP of today.

Up until the Reagan years, there was an active GOP moderate-edging-partially-into-liberal wing in the Northeast (think Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Edward Brooke, etc.).  But once the Nixon-initiated "Southern Strategy", built upon regional disdain for the '64 Civil Rights Act and follow-up measures, started "transferring" the former highly conservative Southern Democrats (the old segregationists) wholesale into Republican ranks, the "northeast wing" saw their intra-party influence rapidly waning; by the end of the Reagan years and the Bush #41 presidency, the GOP was completely dominated by elements from the country's southern tier -- and much more conservative -- primarily in terms of social concepts -- than the party as a whole had ever been.  Most holdover moderates saw the writing on the wall by the '90's and simply retired or were handed their asses in the primaries by more conservative opponents availing themselves of campaign funds bolstered by southern-based donors.  The typical "northern Republican" -- socially moderate to liberal but fiscally conservative -- became all but a nonentity by the turn of the century.  Today's GOP -- for better or worse -- is the product of the last 55 years of sociopolitical shifting and the reaction to that phenomenon. 

[froggie]

^ "Northern Republicans" haven't totally disappeared.  They still exist in numbers at the local and state levels, at least in New England (where two governors are such "Northern Republicans").  I would agree that they've disappeared at the Federal/Congressional level, although Susan Collins pays lip service to the concept.

[SP Cook]

Up until the Reagan years, there was an active GOP moderate-edging-partially-into-liberal wing in the Northeast (think Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Edward Brooke, etc.).  But once the Nixon-initiated "Southern Strategy", built upon regional disdain for the '64 Civil Rights Act and follow-up measures... [/QUTOE]


The existance of a "southern strategy" in the way the term is generally used by revisionist historians, is among the greatest myths taught in the academy. 

Blunty, it never happened.  What happened requires, of course, requires us to go back much further than Nixon.  Back to the beginning of the modern political party systems.  1860. 


Following "reconstruction" the democrat party formed a broad coalition of corrupt northern big city bosses and racist southerners.  Eventually joined by proto-populists like Bryan.  These were opposed by mostly, everyone else.  Small business people, farmers, and, of course, black people opressed by the democrat party.


No matter what your view on any other subject, white southereners voted straight democrat, because democrat=segregation.  Then, after 100 years, the democrat party finally gave in and adopted what had been the Republican view all along.

The "southern strategy" was simply an invitation, and it goes back well before Nixon, to the south to rejoin the party system and vote their actual interests and views on the whole set of issues of that time.  And, it worked.  The south, not because of race at all, but because of the end of the racist rule of the party of race, the democrats, rejoined the rest of the nation and voted what it thought about other issues. 


The revisionist historians, mostly disaffected leftists, invented the myth of a some sort of "flip" in the racist views, rather than the democrats simply being eventualy defeated in their racist system, mostly out of sour grapes and a desire to fool the esoteric student into believing there is this great racist mass in the South.  There isn't.

[Beltway]

Up until the Reagan years, there was an active GOP moderate-edging-partially-into-liberal wing in the Northeast (think Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Edward Brooke, etc.).  But once the Nixon-initiated "Southern Strategy", built upon regional disdain for the '64 Civil Rights Act and follow-up measures...

The existance of a "southern strategy" in the way the term is generally used by revisionist historians, is among the greatest myths taught in the academy. 

Blunty, it never happened.  What happened requires, of course, requires us to go back much further than Nixon.  Back to the beginning of the modern political party systems.  1860. 

Following "reconstruction" the democrat party formed a broad coalition of corrupt northern big city bosses and racist southerners.  Eventually joined by proto-populists like Bryan.  These were opposed by mostly, everyone else.  Small business people, farmers, and, of course, black people opressed by the democrat party.

No matter what your view on any other subject, white southereners voted straight democrat, because democrat=segregation.  Then, after 100 years, the democrat party finally gave in and adopted what had been the Republican view all along.

The "southern strategy" was simply an invitation, and it goes back well before Nixon, to the south to rejoin the party system and vote their actual interests and views on the whole set of issues of that time.  And, it worked.  The south, not because of race at all, but because of the end of the racist rule of the party of race, the democrats, rejoined the rest of the nation and voted what it thought about other issues. 

The revisionist historians, mostly disaffected leftists, invented the myth of a some sort of "flip" in the racist views, rather than the democrats simply being eventualy defeated in their racist system, mostly out of sour grapes and a desire to fool the esoteric student into believing there is this great racist mass in the South.  There isn't.

The Tammany Hall political machine in New York City, and the Daley political machine in Chicago, played major roles in all of this, as well.

[hotdogPi]

The parties definitely switched, but it seems to have been a bit later than 1964.



By Deturtlemon1 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52082376

1968 House map; lighter colors indicate a change from 1966 and can be treated as if they were the darker color. 243 D, 192 R. The South is blue, and the North is red. In the eastern half of the country, there was a full reversal, while the western half stayed mostly the same. The main exception is that extremely urban areas like NYC and Chicago are blue both then and now.

California redistricted in 1966; the 1966 map (not shown here) in California is red on the coasts and blue inland. The reason I chose to show the 1968 map was because 1966 had many more changes, and more of the lighter colors would have caused more confusion.

Even the 1988 map looks a lot like the 1968 map. The "flip" seemed to happen in the 1990s.

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^^
The 1964 election (LBJ vs. Goldwater) was both an anomaly and a premonition.  Happening on the heels of the passage of the Civil Rights Act earlier that year, the Solid South (sorry, SPC, history doesn't back your reductionist play here) previously reliably Democratic states from LA to SC (featuring senators such as Thurmond, Stennis, Russell, etc.) were, besides his home state of AZ, the sole states in the Barry Goldwater column.  To be fair, this was one of the few times the Democrats were able to successfully marshal fear & loathing (e.g., the famous "kid picking daisies before a nuclear explosion" advertisement -- hardly their finest hour -- came out of that campaign) to defeat a Republican candidate.  Four years later came the emergence of a sort of "southern independence" movement, characterized by the formation of George Wallace's "American Independent Party", whose presence arguably shunted enough Southern Democrats away from the national ticket headed by Humphrey to give Nixon his narrow victory.  In a way, the Southern movement from Democrat to Republican had this "mezzanine" step through the Wallace movement, which dissipated after the 1972 election.

Nevertheless, while the pre-'64 Republican party was in the aggregate more overtly conservative than the "northern wing" of the Democratic party -- and the few notable Southern Republicans of the time were generally less prone to countenance racism and segregation than their regional Democratic counterparts -- the legislative successes of the Johnson administration in the mid-'60's in terms of expansion of civil liberties and the administrative apparatus to expedite those individually-expressed rights (which often did, to the consternation of some, cross over into the "entitlement" category) did being about the creation of a "rear guard" movement intent upon limiting or even rolling back the new measures and liberties.  And with the largest consistent bloc of adherents to this movement occupying the southern tier of the nation, the first "new era" (post-'64) Republican activists (the group responsible for Ronald Reagan's ascent to the CA governorship in '66 among other activities) sought to "slide" the masses of Southern Democrats disaffected by the nation party's wholesale endorsement of not only the Civil Rights Act but also the subsequent expansion of public-sector institutions during the LBJ administration ('63-'69) over to the Republican Party -- a process essentially completed by Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign.   The old multipartite Republican party that accommodated moderate-to-liberal viewpoints along with its intrinsic pluralitarian conservative viewpoints became more and more monolithic in its conservatism, partially due to the absorption of large numbers of ecumenical fundamentalist and/or evangelic Christian groups primarily situated in the southern states; as iterated in a previous post (subsequently editorialized by another poster).  Today -- at least in the aggregate -- the face of the Republican party is a southern one, just as 60 years ago that would have been a nominally Democratic face. 

Everyone has experienced the horror stories about the evils of the two major American political parties -- the "big city corruption" purportedly intrinsic to Democrats, or the "greedhead conduit for corporate interests" often attributed to Republicans.  The truth likely contains elements that corroborate these viewpoints as part of each parties' history -- but with little revelation as to how the parties function today.  Much has been said (thankfully, not too much in this forum!) about national polarization; lately, that has been reflected in an almost linear fashion in the parties' general directions.  I'm certainly not going to "laundry-list" the differences between the parties except to say their juxtaposed positions used to resemble a "Venn diagram" whereas today the common area is relatively minimal.  Unfortunately, that's where getting things done resides -- which provide reasons #1-50 for national dysfunction.  Maybe the parties will eventually split and re-form (like amoebae) into a form more amenable to realistically addressing modern issues absent the dysfunctional detours into ideological territory.  At this point, what's "on the ground" isn't working; it only functions to exacerbate the existing problems.           

[SectorZ]

Daniel Tosh tried this as a stunt a bunch of years ago on the Presidential Petition page. It was quickly pulled down. He had these people beat by a long time.