Puerto Rico votes for statehood

[vdeane]

His point is that a normal amendment can simply change Article V, since there's no 'higher level' of unamendable Constitution.

But I'm not convinced that this clause prevents adding Senators that don't represent states, only that it prevents some states having more than others.

Correct.  If you need to amend something that can't be amended, you just amend the part that says you can't amend it.  You could probably even do it in the same amendment.

[kkt]

N.Y. Times op-ed: Will Puerto Rico Be America's 51st State?

The conclusion of the article was that the vote was not presented in a straightforward way.  First it asked whether Puerto Rico should continue as a commonwealth, and the second question was three choices of non-commonwealth options: independence, sovereign free associated state, or statehood.  The author of the article thought it quite likely that even though continued commonwealth status got less than a majority vote, any of the non-commonwealth options would get even smaller votes.  He advocates voting again with the four futures presented as equal possibilities.

I don't expect Congress to work quickly admitting PR even if there were an unambiguous vote in favor of statehood.  PR would be reliably Democratic on national issues and the Republicans don't want that.  So expect delay, and if there's one thing they know how to do it's delay.

About Guam and the Northern Marianas, my experience is that putting areas that don't like each other much under one government tends to make them dislike each other more rather than less.  Every policy gets seen as benefiting one area at the expense of another.  I'm don't think the Northern Marianas are interested in becoming a state even if they were allowed.  And I'm not sure the U.S. would welcome Guam as a state; it's very convenient for the military not to have to consult a state government every time they want to do something at their bases on Guam.