Some areas or places within the United States are too small to be admitted as States, or are under special jurisdiction, such as the District of Columbia (Washington DC).
It occurs to me that we could use a smaller, fully functional organizational designation for such areas which ensures them congressional representation.
So I propose a Constitutional Amendment officially defining such a thing, which for lack of a better term we will call a District.
Under this designation, Districts would gain the following;
1> Self-organizing, as per a State or the current City of Washington DC. With all attendant rights of internal laws, governance, taxation and judiciary.
2> One (1) Senator.
3> Proportional Representation in the US House (meaning 1 Representative for all practical purposes).
Districts do not recieve a star on the national flag.
Places that would be eligible for this designation;
1> Washington DC (the poster child)
2> American Samoa
3> Guam
4> Commonwealth of the Northern Mariannas
5> US Virgin Islands
Note that the peoples of the last four on that list ARE US Citizens and have been for quite some time. Some of those places, such as Guam, have non-voting US reps ala DC.
This proposal is similar to the situation in Australia, where the six states are equally represented in the Senate (because they are all original states), while the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory get fewer senators and are represented in the House of Representatives proportionately to their population. However, Australia’s external territories (which all have very small populations) don’t get representation.
Yes – the reason why it was more acceptable in Australia was because the ACT and the NT tend to be at opposite ends of the political spectrum, so balance each other.
I think one senator is a lot to grant the Northern Mariannas Islands considering they only have 66k people. The US Virgin Islands only have 108k people. Contrast that with Wyoming and DC that have 500k.
Although internal self-government may also be different from statehood. DC is only a City, and it would make no damned sense to add a “Governor” and additional legislature above the level of the city government. The other areas on the list may find other solutions that fit their situation that aren’t exactly State-like either, including forms that may not be acceptable in full states.
Agreed. Allow all the territories/DC one Representative each and no senators. I’m also in favor of allowing them to vote in presidential elections. For Electoral College purposes we could combine all the external territories into a single unit and assign it the same electoral votes it’d have if it were a state.
You could just have a couple of senators and some reps “at-large” to represent all the territories, zones, districts, Americans abroad and anyone else who isn’t currently represented.
Guam swings politically. It currently has a Democrat as a Delegate, and a Republican as Governor. This could go either way.
American Samoa has a rather strong Democratic party, and the one Republican to have electoral success in that area has died. At the same time, however, I do not believe it impossible for either a Republican or an independent to win.
The Northern Mariana Islands has a three-party system: Republicans, Democrats, and the Covenant Party. Of these parties, the Democrats are the least likely to win a Senate race.
The US Virgin Islands, meanwhile, also has three parties, with their third party being the Independent Citizens Movement. In their case, the Republicans have little to no chance (it’s been years since they’ve been able to elect anyone to the Virgin Islands Senate), but the Independent Citizens Movement (or an independent) could win a seat.
Or, alternatively, we could leave things as they are, and all those people who aren’t represented and want to be can move to a state, where they would be.
If you want to talk about changing the status of the territories in Congress, I am open to discussion.
When you throw the District of Columbia into the mix, I say No.
Granted, we already have the odd situations of states with land and no people (AK, WY) and states with people and no land (RI), but those are historical accidents and there is nothing (hypothetically) preventing people from moving to Alaska or Wyoming due to future developments. (Who would have thought that Arizona or Nevada would actually develop populations before the advent of air conditioning and retirement communities?) However, giving the fewer than 600,000 people of D.C. automatic semi-state representation while New York City, with over ten times that population has to wrestle with Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse, etc. for serious representation in the Senate or to avoid being gerrymandered out of represention in the House just seems odd.
If D.C. wants representation, let them work out a deal to have the populated portion of the city retrocessed to Maryland while the Mall, Capitol, White House, Supreme Court, Mint, Smithsonian, and other museums remain a Federal District.
As others have said, this would lower the bar on Senate representation considerably. The average Senator now represents over 3,000,000 people. The smallest population representated by a Senator is 261,000. The District of Clumbia has 588,000 people but the other territories you named range from 57,000 to 173,000.
Is that a necessity for US states? If the US ever admitted a city-state, I don’t see why it would need to implement any state apparatus other than its municipal government, as long as it’s democratic. The mayor would be the equivalent of a US governor, and the municipal council would be the equivalent of a state legislature.
This confused the heck out of me, until I figured out that you were cutting Wyoming in half. I don’t think that’s an appropriate formulation, though – every state has two Senators, and each Senator represents every person in that state. They don’t divide the state between them.
I agree it’s more accurate to say Wyoming has 522,000 people, each of whom is represented by two Senators, rather than Wyoming has two groups of 261,000 people, each of which is represented by a Senator. But in this particular case, where we’re discussing the ratio of Senators to citizens, I felt that dividing up the population was relevant.