Oone of the most powerful prosecutions of former US President Donald Trump last week came from Stacey Plaskett of the US Virgin Islands, the first delegate from a US territory to hold the position of indictment manager.
However, Plaskett’s status meant she could not vote for Trump’s accusation because she had no vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. The US Virgin Islands have no representation in the Senate at all. Its residents can not even vote for president.
The anomaly illuminates America’s long, unaddressed colonial history that drives five territories into constitutional parts, and their inhabitants – mostly coloreds – are effectively treated as second-class citizens.
But with the escalation of last summer’s protests against racial injustice, and the election of a Democratic president, one of the areas – Puerto Rico – is aiming to become the union’s 51st state. A parallel effort by Washington, District of Columbia (DC), is also closer to its similar goal.
“It’s incredibly important to take a step back and see who really represented in democracy,” he said. Stasha Rhodes, campaign manager of 51 for 51, an organization that advocates DC coups. ‘When you think of all the players you mentioned, they all have a thread: they’re all colored. Does America have a true democracy when there are so many coloreds standing outside watching and unable to participate fully? ‘
There are five inhabited US territories: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Apart from American Samoa, people born in the areas are U.S. citizens and pay their federal taxes like Medicare and Social Security, but not federal taxes on local income. Each area sends a delegate to the House who can debate legislation and sit on committees but is unable to vote.
Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony until 1898 when it came under American control as part of the provisions that ended the Spanish-American War. In 1917, the Jones Act granted Puerto Ricans American citizenship, and in 1952 it became a common denominator of the United States – but still without the right to vote in U.S. presidential elections.
In the past half-century, Puerto Rico has held six non-binding referendums on its status and last November voted 52% -47% in favor of state capture, a case fueled by grievances over the federal government’s inadequate response to the hurricane Maria in 2017. In a Governor Pedro Pierluisi, last week with Axios on HBO, said: “Congress is morally obliged to respond” and predicts that a House Bill will be introduced next month.
George Laws Garcia, executive director of the Puerto Rico Statehood Council, said: ‘You have a bunch of unelected individuals making decisions on behalf of the people of Puerto Rico about the desires and ideas and perspectives of the local elected officials, which I think are basically blatant colonialism.
‘We have had Hurricane Maria and the earthquakes, and now Covid, and in all these cases when Puerto Rico needs federal resources, federal support, federal action, we do not have the ability to hold elected officials in Washington accountable for what they do. do not, because they never get votes from Puerto Rico, and that includes the president as well as members of Congress. ”
It is Congress that must approve the creation of a new state for the first time since Hawaii in 1959.
Republicans took the step as an unconstitutional coup that would likely give Democrats two extra seats in the Senate. Martha McSally, then a senator for Arizona, told NBC News last year that if Puerto Rico were to get coups, Republicans “would never get the Senate back”.
Although the Democrats control the House, a bill on a state of the nation address will find a much more difficult passage in the proportionate Senate, where 60 votes are needed to thwart the ‘death switch’ of a Republican filibuster. Despite progressives pointing to the racist history of the filibuster, key Democrats Joe Manchin and Christian Cinema have already indicated they are not prepared to eliminate it.
Garcia added: ‘The prospects of state capture are incredibly challenging, but it has been challenging for every other area ever allowed as a state. In my lifetime, this is definitely the best possible chance we can have. ”
Almost all of Puerto Rico’s residents are Hispanic, while nearly half of DCs are African American. But as the capital of the country, DC comes from a different historical, economic and constitutional perspective.
Its residents of more than 700,000 – higher than the population of Vermont and Wyoming – pay more per capita in federal income taxes than any state. They were given the right to vote in presidential elections in 1961, but they still have a voting member in the House or a vote in the Senate.
The movement for DC State is bigger and better organized than ever before. Last year in June, the House passed a bill approving it, the first time a Congress chamber has enacted a DC state measure. It never had a chance in the Republican-controlled Senate, but protests in Black Lives Matter in Washington gave the cause power.
Rhodes of 51 for 51 said: “
Our most celebrated civil rights leaders fought for access to democracy. If you think of John Lewis and Martin Luther King, they all fought for access to voting and access to representation. That is why, in 2021, we are still fighting in Washington DC for equal representation and a clear chance of participating in democracy. ”
One major obstacle was removed when Trump, who promised “DC will never be a state” because he would definitely elect Democratic senators, was beaten in the presidential election by Joe Biden, who expressed support for the campaign.
Then came the uprising on January 6 at the American Capitol. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters earlier this month: ‘If the District of Columbia can act as a state, any governor can call the National Guard without the consent of the federal government. It does not have to be this way. ”
Eleanor Holmes Norton, DC’s non-voting member of the House, reinstated the coup last month, while Democratic Senator Tom Carper of Delaware reinstated his companion bill at the state institution, which currently has 39 Democratic voters. has.
Meagan Hatcher-Mays, director of democracy policy for the grassroots movement Indivisible, said: ‘This is a matter of basic equity. DC is not all government bureaucrats and advocates. There are real real people living here, many of whom have had the task of clearing up the mess of the January 6 uprising. These are residents of DC and they do not vote in Congress at all, so it would seem to me that it is a fairly easy removal for every Democrat in the Senate to say that it is wrong. ”
Hatcher-Mays, a former assistant to Holmes Norton, added: ‘We need to eliminate the filibuster to make DC the 51st state. This is the closest we’ve ever got to DC State, and if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen this Congress, and it really has to happen, otherwise the Senate is in trouble. It really is not representative of the country as a whole and making DC a state will help a lot in solving the problem. ‘
The issue has the Democratic deficit of the Senate, where mainly small states get two seats each, as much weight as large, racially diverse states like California. In 2018, David Leonhardt, a New York Times opinion columnist, calculated that the Senate gives the average black American only 75% as much representation as the average white American, and the average Hispanic only 55% as much.
Furthermore, there were only 11 black senators left in the 232-year history of the Senate and Plaskett was the only elected black woman during the indictment. In such a context, the Republicans’ opposition to state capture is described as an attempt to protect the government of white minorities.
LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said: “Ultimately, your states have moved from Utah to Montana to others that were previously coup d’etat with fewer questions, with less criticism than DC and Puerto Rico. This is a fundamental democratic mistake and it smells of hypocrisy. The only reason it’s a debate or even a question is because of who makes up the majority of both places. ”
An earlier bid for DC coup was defeated nearly 2-1 in the Democratic-controlled House in 1993, while President Bill Clinton was reluctant to get involved. This time, with Biden making racial justice a priority, the mood is different. There is a sense that the Democrats’ control over the White House, the Senate and the House presents a historic opportunity.
Donna Brazile, a former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, said: ‘It’s about making America a more perfect union. It is the oldest constitutional democracy in the world, and yet some of the citizens do not have all the full voting rights, because of their place of residence. If we are going to end racial injustice in America and talk about a new beginning for the country, we cannot bypass old issues. ”