Don’t see why not.
Indeed, as far as I can see, you could have a monolingual version, with the one language not being English. It’s unlikely that anyone would want to do that, but I don’t see anything to prevent it.
Are all of the Native American constitutions, etc, written in English?
I don’t see that a State would acquire much influence over the federal government simply by virtue of having institutions of the federal government operating out of buildings within its territory. The significance of a federal district now is probably symbolic.
Some other federations - Australia, Brazil, India - have a similar federal district, while others - Germany, Austria, Switzerland - do not.
Right; the 20th and 21st century U.S. federal government is vastly more powerful than the original 18th century model; it has powers of direct taxation that are vastly greater than the original U.S. federal government, and whereas in the first 150 years or so of U.S. history the federal government traditionally had only a very small peacetime army (expanding only if there was an actual war going on), the modern federal government commands a standing military force of inconceivable strength and firepower from an 18th century P.O.V.
The Pentagon and the CIA are both headquartered on what is technically Virginian soil, but no one thinks that Virginia will somehow be able to exert some kind of undue influence on the U.S. military forces or intelligence services.
So, you feel that it’s a matter of Federal military strength, VS a single State’s military strength?
No, political strength, I think, which (as regards internal affairs in the US) is much more closely tied to economic clout than to military clout.
Suppose Congress did meet on land which was situated in Virginia or Maryland. How, exactly, would that give either Virginia or Maryland any particular influence over Congress than other states have? Even if we could think of a way in which Virginia or Maryland would attempt this, Congress could simply relocate itself to, say, Pennsylvania or New York.
I suspect back in the day a part of the rational for having a federal district was simply so that no one state could claim the status of playing host to the federal government.
A secondary consideration was that - especially with the state of communications at the time - physical proximity to the federal institutions would certainly have facilitated networking, access to information, opportunity to influence, etc. But the fact is that the establishment of a federal district does little to counteract this; the establishment of the District of Columbia doesn’t increase the geographic distance between Washington and, e.g., Baltimore, or erect social barriers that would impeded the development of political networks embracing both places.
A third (and related) consideration was, perhaps, that if states had to concede territory for the federal capital, there would automatically be no pressure to establish the capital permanently in any of the existing major cities - the respective states would not wish to cede Boston, or New York, or Philadelphia, or wherever. So this would do something to ensure that the federal capital would at least start its life somewhat disconnected from any of the existing networks of power.
So I think it really comes down to this; the founders didn’t want the federal government to have a special or privileged relationship with any state, beyond what the bare facts of physical and social geography would dictate. And the establishment of a federal district symbolised and underlined this view of the proper state-federal relationship even if, in itself, it did only a limited amount to give effect to it.
One thing about the Federal Districts in other federal-style countries (Australia, Brazil, India) is that as far as I can tell, most of them DO get voting representation for their permanent population in the national legislature, rather than be disenfranchised. Other Federal Countries (Germany, Austria) have the capital simply be a constituent state in and of itself, and yet others (Canada) just have it be a regular city.
As to bilingual, etc. state constitutions: once you are admitted as a state, being recognized as internally sovereign by the Congress you can do what you want with your state constitution just as long as it does not violate or contradict the US Constitution. A similar but more restrictive provision was applied by Congress to the nonsovereign PR Commonwealth Constitution, dictating that any amendment or replacement could not violate the US Constitution, nor the terms of its own enabling act or the PR Federal Relations Act. At the time the current PR Constitution was given the go-ahead by the US Congress in 1952 it was known it was drafted and debated in Spanish.
A kind of twisted mirror to this is the status of the UN in America, and, bringing it down a notch, the UN in NYC, where the city exerts itself, or tries to, where the political power of the UN regularly faces off, and wins, on parking tickets.
Yep. Travel between PR and the mainland is a legal non-issue. There is no passport or visa control and anyone who is allowed to be in the general US immigration and customs zone can go back and forth between PR and the mainland for whatever reason they want and can stay on either side for as long as they want. The barriers that exist are cultural, and those aren’t likely to be coming down very fast. PR definitely has the feel of “Not quite the America I know, but still somehow America”. It’s full of McDonalds, Burger King, and CVS, but it’s definitely a place where things operate first in Spanish and then in English. This applies doubly as much if you leave San Juan and go to a small town. There is a great emphasis on mutual respect - if you approach someone in rural PR and try to use high school Spanish to communicate, they will be very accommodating and eager to help you (at least, such is my experience). If you speak loudly and mockingly in English, they will roll their eyes at the stupid gringo.
There’s also the matter of the fact that the English language has no legal regulator, so there’s not even a clear legal process for distinguishing the difference between a document in English and a document that might be in English but really looks more liek sumt1ng tat sum d00d rited tat lookz sorta liek english butt rea11y ist t3h diferunt.
Utah only became a state after they agreed to ban polygamy. In an amazing coincidence , God told the Mormons to get rid of polygamy at the same time.
I don’t think that’s “the political power of the UN”. I think that’s the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which is part of US law.
IOW, it’s not the UN that stops NYC enforcing parking fines against the UN. It’s the Feds.
Interesting fact: Just a few months ago, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere – Mexico City – changed its status from “Mexico, Federal District” to simply “Mexico City.”
What of the Federal District itself, which includes (I believe) some places outside of Mexico City? Is the whole thing now a state? I’ll look that up now, or maybe a knowledgable Doper will tell us what happened and how it might relate to the ideas discussed in this thread.
Per Wikipedia:
“On January 29, 2016, it ceased to be called the Federal District (Spanish: Distrito Federal or D.F.) and is now in transition to become the country’s 32nd federal entity, giving it a level of autonomy comparable to that of a state. Because of a clause in the Mexican Constitution, however, as the seat of the powers of the federation, it can never become a state, lest the capital of the country be relocated elsewhere.”
So, I was wrong about the existence of land outside of Mexico City but within the former Federal District – they are, geographically, one and the same.
The change, then, is from a “federal district” – in some ways like the District of Columbia (but a bit closer to a state, in that many Mexican laws and processes have long referred to the “32 entities” – 31 states plus DF – as functionally equivalent) … to a “city” that is even more like a 32nd state, but still not quite there yet.