51st state?

[inkyatari]

  However, if even just 7% of the electorate that stayed home due to the awful choices had decided to go out and vote for the Libertarian candidate, he would have gotten 10%.  Still no electoral votes so it may seem like a wasted effort but hitting that 10% mark gets people's attention.  Then maybe in 2020 the Libertarian candidate gets 15%, and so on.

More than that, hitting that threshold means that in most states the third party is not considered a third party anymore, and are on equal ground legally with the other parties, when it comes to ballot access.

[leroys73]

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/1036681001

New California has declared independence from the rest of it. Current California would be reduced to Sacramento, San Francisco, LA and San Diego metro areas. New California would be the New California.

Puerto Rico has had movements in the past (but turned down) and DC also wants the 51st state designation. Thoughts?

I personally am in support of California splitting. Puerto Rico is up to them but DC should not become a state. The founders did not want DC to become part of a state or a state itself because it is the country's capital.

Agree on all three points, most people do not realize or know why DC was never intended to be a state.  The founders did not want any state to interfere with the Federal Government.  That is the very short reason.  Of course by the 10 Amendment the Federal Government was limited to the powers that were spelled out in the Constitution, all else reserved for the states.  We see how that has gone. 

[kkt]

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/1036681001

New California has declared independence from the rest of it. Current California would be reduced to Sacramento, San Francisco, LA and San Diego metro areas. New California would be the New California.

Puerto Rico has had movements in the past (but turned down) and DC also wants the 51st state designation. Thoughts?

I personally am in support of California splitting. Puerto Rico is up to them but DC should not become a state. The founders did not want DC to become part of a state or a state itself because it is the country's capital.

Agree on all three points, most people do not realize or know why DC was never intended to be a state.  The founders did not want any state to interfere with the Federal Government.  That is the very short reason.  Of course by the 10 Amendment the Federal Government was limited to the powers that were spelled out in the Constitution, all else reserved for the states.  We see how that has gone. 

Most people who graduated from high school know that's why Congress carved a Federal district out of Maryland and Virginia.  However, a lot has changed since then.  The balance of power between federal and state would not allow any state to interfere with the federal government.  We have our military headquarters and our chief spy agency and our chief codemaking and codebreaking agency in states, as well as many other agencies and all three airports service the Federal district.  No state interferes.  The founders also did not anticipate how many people would be living in the federal district.  They should have representatives in congress and in the senate.

[leroys73]

Most people who graduated from high school know that's why Congress carved a Federal district out of Maryland and Virginia.  However, a lot has changed since then.  The balance of power between federal and state would not allow any state to interfere with the federal government.  We have our military headquarters and our chief spy agency and our chief codemaking and codebreaking agency in states, as well as many other agencies and all three airports service the Federal district.  No state interferes.  The founders also did not anticipate how many people would be living in the federal district.  They should have representatives in congress and in the senate.
[/quote]

I must disagree with your first sentence.  You need to get out in the general population more. 

[Hurricane Rex]

Most people who graduated from high school know that's why Congress carved a Federal district out of Maryland and Virginia.  However, a lot has changed since then.  The balance of power between federal and state would not allow any state to interfere with the federal government.  We have our military headquarters and our chief spy agency and our chief codemaking and codebreaking agency in states, as well as many other agencies and all three airports service the Federal district.  No state interferes.  The founders also did not anticipate how many people would be living in the federal district.  They should have representatives in congress and in the senate.

I must disagree with your first sentence.  You need to get out in the general population more.
[/quote]

It also isn't taught too well at my high school as DC is on our name the states test.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

DC deserves more local control than it has, especially removing Congressional oversight of its city functions. I can imagine your reaction to having your local decisions subject to automatic conditional approval from another body would not go over well with most people here. And that's what DC deals with. Congress gets the automatic ability to say yes or no to everything the city government does, no questions asked. Why should they have that ability?

[michravera]

DC deserves more local control than it has, especially removing Congressional oversight of its city functions. I can imagine your reaction to having your local decisions subject to automatic conditional approval from another body would not go over well with most people here. And that's what DC deals with. Congress gets the automatic ability to say yes or no to everything the city government does, no questions asked. Why should they have that ability?

The seat of government of the US needs to be able to run without local interference. EVERYTHING that DC does, from the timing of traffic lights to the days that garbage is collected and from the penalty for murder to the temperature to which the Jacuzzi in your apartment complex is heated has an impact on the government of the US. Some things, more than others, of course. That's not true of the Jacuzzi in Sacramento or the timing of the traffic signals in Austin or the penalty for murder in Tallahassee or the day on which garbage is collected in Springfield.

[NWI_Irish96]

DC deserves more local control than it has, especially removing Congressional oversight of its city functions. I can imagine your reaction to having your local decisions subject to automatic conditional approval from another body would not go over well with most people here. And that's what DC deals with. Congress gets the automatic ability to say yes or no to everything the city government does, no questions asked. Why should they have that ability?

The seat of government of the US needs to be able to run without local interference. EVERYTHING that DC does, from the timing of traffic lights to the days that garbage is collected and from the penalty for murder to the temperature to which the Jacuzzi in your apartment complex is heated has an impact on the government of the US. Some things, more than others, of course. That's not true of the Jacuzzi in Sacramento or the timing of the traffic signals in Austin or the penalty for murder in Tallahassee or the day on which garbage is collected in Springfield.

The best solution is not realistic due to constitutional and political concerns, but ideally the size of DC would shrink to exclude areas that are mostly residential and have little or no Federal agencies.  I agree that the seat of the Federal government needs to have some level of control over the core of the city that it doesn't need in any other city or state, but there are a lot of parts of DC where that control is unnecessary.  Ultimately, once you turn 18 you have a choice whether or not to live in DC and know what the rules are when you make that choice.  If having the Federal government involved in your local laws bothers you that much then you can always move to MD or VA.

[kkt]

In the 1770s, I'm sure some Englishmen were saying that once you Americans turn 18 if being able to vote for your representative in Parliament is important to you, you can always move back to England and try to find a non-rotten borrough.

[oscar]

In the 1770s, I'm sure some Englishmen were saying that once you Americans turn 18 if being able to vote for your representative in Parliament is important to you, you can always move back to England and try to find a non-rotten borrough.

Of course, everybody who lives in D.C. is five miles or less from Maryland and/or Virginia. For most people, that's long walking distance.

Many people living in D.C. moved there from someplace else. Of those who were born in D.C. and never left, probably most of them have moved from one place to another within D.C., and could easily have moved instead to one of the close-in suburbs if voting representation in Congress really mattered to them.

[english si]

Parliamentary democracy would allow for more political parties to be involved.  Governing coalitions have to be formed so when there is no meeting of the minds, the parliament is dissolved, the prime minister steps aside and a short election campaign is conducted with the hope that the next batch in office can git 'er done.

On coalitions - not necessarily: the UK has only 'needed' two post-WW2. And the current Tory-DUP alliance would only have been needed if 1) Sinn Fein took their seats in Westminster or 2) the DUP were happy with Prime Minister Corbyn. Neither would be the case, but May decided that she needed a formal pact. OK, both the Tories and Labour would be at least 2 parties in countries with parliamentarians elected proportionately by party rather than individuals and thus are coalitions, but the same is true for the GOP and Dems in the USA.

Also you don't want to end up like Germany, etc where elections barely change the Government. One party leader in one country took an important job for about 30 years as his party won roughly 5% and held enough power that they were always needed (with the price being the leader keeping his cabinet position). As elections barely change a thing, instead of politicians vs politicians, it becomes politicians vs people - as seen by the rise of the far Left and far Right across Europe who want to challenge the status quo.

I have ten people representing me in the EU parliament (which were allocated proportionately by party in order of where the party has listed them - putting parties above people and stopping independent candidates). I'm more politically aware than most, and my region has the big names top of their parties list (as the biggest UK region, and 10 seats on offer, its hard for the top name not to be elected), but I can only name three of them and can't remember what the party split was in 2014. I think two of them (ie the Labour ones) are part of the permanent governing 'grand coalition' of Centre-right, Centre-left and Centre party groupings (all committed to EU-nationalism, and federalism) and the other nine in different opposition groupings (the Greens, whatever UKIP called themselves, and the EU-skeptic centre right grouping that the Tories formed when they got fed up of being blacklisted from speaking in the Parliament for not being pro-Brussels).

As for parliaments being disposed and elections held if a coalition can't be formed - nope. Belgium didn't have elections to fix it's years without a Government - merely they found a PM to form a government every time they were needed to ratify something from the EU, with the government doing that one pro-EU thing and then collapsing as pro-EU was the only thing there was a majority for. Germany merely had elections as a possibility if a grand coalition failed, and Mutti wasn't planning on one. That's a Westminster-style feature.

But here is a bigger example of non-representation:
Libertarian party got 3% of popular vote during last presidential election. How many representatives in congress do they have?

UKIP got 12.6% of the national share in 2015, but merely one seat of 650.

Also their narrow geographical spread gave the SNP 56 seats off a 4.7% share (winning almost all the Scottish seats by winning just under half the Scottish vote), but the Lib Dems 8 seats off 7.9%.

That's the problem with FPTP. It was worst in the UK in 2005 where Blair got a massive majority on a lower %age than Cameron got in 2010 when he didn't win a majority in the Commons.

In the 1770s, I'm sure some Englishmen were saying that once you Americans turn 18 if being able to vote for your representative in Parliament is important to you, you can always move back to England and try to find a non-rotten borrough.

No - try to find a rotten borough. Your vote (assuming you were a land-owning male, over-21, and all that) counts for more if there's only a couple of dozen electors electing two MPs than if there's a whole county. 

[wxfree]

With the Hurricane Maria disaster and the accusations of unequal treatment, there's renewed interest in Puerto Rico's statehood for the purpose of equal status.  Puerto Rico's congressional delegate has introduced a bill.  It has 37 co-sponsors, the majority of which are Republican.  If the people vote for it, in an election that's taken seriously, I'm in favor.  This is the longest we've ever gone without a new state.  That by itself isn't a reason to add a new one, but I don't think we should stagnate and fall into acceptance of 50 as the "correct" number of states that can never change.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/politics/puerto-rico-statehood-bill/index.html

[PHLBOS]

In the 1770s, I'm sure some Englishmen were saying that once you Americans turn 18 if being able to vote for your representative in Parliament is important to you, you can always move back to England and try to find a non-rotten borrough.

The XXVIth Amendment, that lowered the legal voting age from 21 to 18, has only been around since 1971.

[abefroman329]

In the 1770s, I'm sure some Englishmen were saying that once you Americans turn 18 if being able to vote for your representative in Parliament is important to you, you can always move back to England and try to find a non-rotten borrough.

The XXVIth Amendment, that lowered the legal voting age from 21 to 18, has only been around since 1971.

Yeah, someone finally figured out that it was kind of hypocritical that 18 was old enough to be sent to die in Vietnam but not old enough to vote.

[SP Cook]

The PR statehood bill gets introduced every year.  The current congresswoman is just better at PR (no pun intended) than her predecessors. 

The thing that has changed is that large numbers of people fleeing PR's disfunctional government have moved, the majority to Florida and Georgia.  With Florida having been the largest swing state for at least 20 years and no signs of that changing, doing things for PR, be it statehood or passing laws on whatever subject to try to fix the mess there, has suddenly become very important to Florida politicians, and to people running for President.

[Rothman]

PR's dysfunctional government?  That may be part of it, but the exodus kicked into high gear also due to the miserable federal response to Maria.

[jeffandnicole]

PR's dysfunctional government?  That may be part of it, but the exodus kicked into high gear also due to the miserable federal response to Maria.

Well, not having electric for many months will do that.

But that's not all completely the government's fault.  They're not the ones installing the power lines.

[vdeane]

Plus there's the fact that PR's current fiscal mess was basically caused by the current special status.

But that's not all completely the government's fault.  They're not the ones installing the power lines.

Actually, they kinda are.

[bing101]

California in even number years there's always a ballot initiative about splitting California into different parts. But in the last three Tim Draper was behind the 2014, the 2016 and 2018. Another version was to make California leave the USA.  Note the Draper editions involved that California become 3 or 6 parts though. However that proposal always gets shot down Downtown Sacramento and gets diverted over to the water debates or the immigration debates.

Texas is another state where the same sort of stuff gets discussed in even number years. But that gets called off for similar reasons though.

[roadman65]

Well if this current ballot things gets all the way, we could see a 51st and 52nd state!

[Techknow]

This year's California ballot there will be a vote on a proposition to gain state legislative approval to split the state to three. So there is a possibility for it to pass but I imagine it will be quite small for reasons we already discussed (water rights, divisions of certain counties in Southern California, and others.)

EDIT: Another big issue to deal with is the state's higher education system. There are 10 UCs, and many more CSUs and CCCs which reside in all three proposed states, so how would residency be dealt with?

[NWI_Irish96]

Well if this current ballot things gets all the way, we could see a 51st and 52nd state!

The vote in California isn't the last step.  It would need Congressional approval and that's never happening.  One party would be at a Congressional representation disadvantage by any state splitting and would block it.

[hotdogPi]

Well if this current ballot things gets all the way, we could see a 51st and 52nd state!

The vote in California isn't the last step.  It would need Congressional approval and that's never happening.  One party would be at a Congressional representation disadvantage by any state splitting and would block it.

Democrats would get up to 4 extra Senate seats. Republicans have a chance at getting about 15-20 electoral votes ("Southern California" leans blue; it isn't solid). It seems like those two might cancel each other out.

[webny99]

Well if this current ballot things gets all the way, we could see a 51st and 52nd state!

The vote in California isn't the last step.  It would need Congressional approval and that's never happening.  One party would be at a Congressional representation disadvantage by any state splitting and would block it.

Democrats would get up to 4 extra Senate seats. Republicans have a chance at getting about 15-20 electoral votes ("Southern California" leans blue; it isn't solid). It seems like those two might cancel each other out.

That's kinda what I've been saying, but no one seems to buy it.

[sparker]

Well if this current ballot things gets all the way, we could see a 51st and 52nd state!

The vote in California isn't the last step.  It would need Congressional approval and that's never happening.  One party would be at a Congressional representation disadvantage by any state splitting and would block it.

Democrats would get up to 4 extra Senate seats. Republicans have a chance at getting about 15-20 electoral votes ("Southern California" leans blue; it isn't solid). It seems like those two might cancel each other out.

That's kinda what I've been saying, but no one seems to buy it.

Chances are it'll fail in November;  very few or even no CA Democrats, coastal or not, will vote for it; it'll be just like any statewide issue and be decided in the coastal urban regions (I'm predicting at worst 47-53 against).  On the slight chance there's a general low turnout and every inland voter shows up and things go the other way, any Congressional makeup even vaguely resembling the current one won't take the chance of at least 2 and perhaps 3 additional senators on the D-side of the aisle.  The way the divisions play out, there are suburban moderate-to-liberal subregions in even the ostensibly conservative Southern California segment -- and it's likely both parties will elect to maintain the status quo if nothing else than to avoid the "gerrymandering" label being applied to their districting efforts, particularly in regards to those districts which would cross the new state boundaries. 

But I don't think it'll come to a Congressional head -- it'll lose right here in-state.