I know that residents of Puerto Rico (and of other American insular territories whose inhabitants are US citizens) cannot vote for the POTUS or Congress, because they are a territory, not a state, as well as residents of Washington D.C., which is a federal district not part of a state (though D.C. has a non-voting delegate in Congress). Technically, though:
1 - Am I correct that the first rule depends purely on residency, not origin? In other words, if a person born in Puerto Rico and with ancestry there moves to New York City, they can vote for the POTUS and the local Congressman/Senator there and is in all other legal respects treated as being as much a US citizen as someone born in one of the 50 states? Conversely, if a person whose father’s ancestors came to New York when it was still New Amsterdam and whose mother’s ancestors are all of Mayflower stock moved to Puerto Rico, they would be disenfranchised for federal elections while resident there, right?
2 - Regarding the second rule: is this a deterrent for many common Americans from moving to D.C.? It’s obvious why the President, a congressman, or another person with power would go and live there, but what about common folk like ordinary salarypeople, laborers, etc.? I have always appreciated the minimum of control that the right to vote gives me and would hate to live somewhere where, though a citizen, I couldn’t vote. Do many people attempt to get around this, e.g. by maintaining an address in a state, and visiting there at federal elections, all the while actually living in D.C.?
The 23rd Amendment granted DC residents the right to vote for President.
Yes, disenfranchisement from Congressional elections is a consideration, but I don’t know anybody who maintains a fraudulent second residence to overcome this deficit.
As to the first question: Yes. People born in DC and Puerto Rico are full US citizens. The fact that they can’t vote in some elections (here I’m glossing over the no voting delegates that they elect, and the electoral votes for DC) is not a defect in their citizenship but a consequence of the fact that no seats that could possibly be filled in the election have been assigned to where they reside. If they move to an ordinary state, they can participate in federal elections there just like the locals.
Non-voting members of the United States House of Representatives (called either delegates or resident commissioner , in the case of Puerto Rico are representatives of their territory in the House of Representatives, who do not have a right to vote on proposed legislation in the full House but nevertheless have floor privileges and are able to participate in certain other House functions. Non-voting members may vote in a House committee of which they are a member and introduce legislation.There are currently six non-voting members: a delegate representing the District of Columbia, a resident commissioner representing Puerto Rico, as well as one delegate for each of the other four permanently inhabited U.S. territories: American Samoa,[Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands. A seventh delegate, representing the[Cherokee Nation, has been formally proposed but not yet seated, while an eighth, representing the Choctaw Nation, is named in a treaty but has neither been proposed nor seated.
The only real difference in representation is the ability to cast a final vote on a bill. The delegates serve on committees, introduce legislation and all the other stuff a rep does.
Yup definitely we moved to the DC metro in 2019, to just outside DC in Maryland (I’m a software engineer, not doing anything government related). And that was absolutely a factor in why we went with MD not DC itself. We are just outside DC, (just) walking distance to the border. Admittedly the house prices in DC were a bigger factor, but that was too.
Also its absolutely residency not where you were born (both my children born since the move have been born in DC itself and that won’t effect their status at all when they are voting age)
At least as of 20 or so years ago, if you worked as a staff member for a Senator or Congressman you were still treated as a resident of your home state for voting and taxing purposes if you lived in DC. You had to have some address you could list back in the home state, but it was often just an old address or relative’s house. Obviously, this was particularly advantageous for staff from states with no income tax.
You could also continue to register your car back home and get a “reciprocity parking permit” for the District, which was like gold.
And if you moved to PR, you’d lose the ability to vote on any of those positions. I’m surprised no one has tried a lawsuit contesting that based on the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment. Or maybe someone has but it didn’t get any traction in the courts.
Don’t discount that the absence of the floor vote makes them all politically weaker when it comes to the legislative negotiation process. ( DC’s Eleanor Holmes Norton is a notable exception due to long seniority and internal Democratic Party dynamics re:DC)
Add also the absence of apportionment - so the Puerto Rico member has to serve five times as many people as the average House district and the constituents there don’t have a seat in as many committees as a comparable state.
And that’s of course not mentioning flat out exclusion from Senate presence.
On the other hand, if I moved to PR I wouldn’t have to file tax returns. Not that I rever owe any US taxes, but I have the pain of having to file. Not the mention the FATCA report.
Don’t be so sure. If you have US-sourced income you may still have to file a Federal form even from PR, even if just to claim the exemption, depending on the nature and amount of the income. And of course my distant cousin the Puerto Rico Treasury Secretary would be looking forward to your Puerto Rico state income tax return.
Puerto Rico has over 3M inhabitants, putting it between Utah and Iowa in population (4 congresscritters each). I wonder what making it a state would do to the overall congress apportionment? Who loses?
DC as a state however would still only get one real congressperson. It’s a district now. What would they call it if they make it a state? (“Washington” is already taken… or “This is our state of Washington, and this is our other state of Washington.” Shades of Bob Newhart show.)
If Puerto Rico had been a state in 2020, and the number of permanent seats stayed at 435, and PR safely had four seats, then the losers would likely have been Colorado, California, Montana, and Minnesota, which “won” seats 432-435.
It’s possible an admission law would add permanent seats, though. The most recent DC statehood bill would have added a 436th seat permanently, not just until the next Census.
The current proposal is for the unwieldy name of “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth.”
To me, the obvious choice would be Columbia. That’s where the city of Washington is located right now, isn’t it? Kinda sorta? Wouldn’t it just be a conversion of Columbia from a district to a state?
I’d just like to add that Puerto RIco has party primary elections for both the Democrats and Republicans, so they have some say in the choice of President.
Actually, they have D and R primaries in all the populated territories. While there are a decent number of delegates from PR, there aren’t from the others, since they have low populations.