Why did the U. S. stop at 50 states?

Factual Questions
21

The primary reason no new states have joined is because the only remaining candidates are either constitutional forbidden from becoming a State (like Washington DC) or their populations don’t want to become states (like Guam, American Samoa, and Porto Rico etc.)

Probably the biggest reason they don’t want to join is they would become subject to federal income taxes if they do become States. Culture, language, and ethic differences are also factors. There has been times when small pluralities of people in Porto Rico for instance wanted statehood but it was never strong enough to actually push it through.

22

Vexillologists (Flag nuts/enthusiasts) have designed constellations for large numbers of stars, in addition to official US efforts.

I find it interesting that SF writers have speculated on more than 50 states. In particular, both Heinlein (Rocket Ship Galileo) and Jules Verne (The Meteor Hunt) speculated a future with 51 states – and both books were written before there were 50 states!

In fact, in Propellor Island, Verne speculated about a future US with 76 states (several were in Canada in that book).

23

Guests have been able to search for quite some time now.

24

Every now and again there are a few small groups who want to break off and start a new state - one of them is the South Jersey group who feel they are ignored by the rest of New Jersey.

25

You could see that theoretically happening in a number of places with geographically discrete populations/socioeconomic makeup/politics. So. Delaware’s very different from Wilmington. Eastern and Western Pennsylvania. North and South Florida.

26

Minor hijack (well maybe major but the OP question has been answered). Is there any Constitutional or legal prohibition against a state dividing itself into two Senate districts and having each district elect one of the Senators? The relevant portion of the Constitution (17th Amendment) says in part: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof …” It does not give any indication that it can’t be done as I asked above provided the ‘people thereof’ vote. It does not for example say ‘all the people (or voters) thereof’.

27

(wow, ya learn somfin’ new every day!)

but, yeah, this kinda worries me too----
…1) why does the US. government have an office of Heraldry anyway?–It sounds too British and aristocratic…kinda what we fought against in 1776.
and 2) …geez, doesn’t the army have ,like, ya know, something just a little more imporant to do?

28

Quick, nobody tell this guy about the marching bands.

29

And the flags. They have a lot of flags in the US Army, and take them very seriously indeed.

30

No.

California often discusses breaking into two states.

Texas is predistricted to break into 5.

But, its cheaper to have one state government than two. So most people don’t want the splits.

Politically its a double edged sword.

Yeah California could split and become one Republican dominated state and one Democrat dominated state. More party-friendly state laws - but two more senators in the US senate of the opposite party…

31

The Northwest Ordinance set a minimum of 60,000 for a territory to apply for statehood. I presume this is still in effect.

32

Article IV, section 3: “New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

Meaning, no state can split itself in two without the permission of Congress.

33

That’s not what I asked. I don’t want to know if a state could split into two. I want to know if a state could divide into two senatorial districts so that half the state voted for one of them and half the state voted for the other.

34

I imagine it would be legal, based on the fact that the wording is almost identical to that used by the Constitution when declaring how Representitives are to be chosen, and those are obviously allowed to be done by district.

35

What is the incentive to become a state? What was the incentive in the past? It seems we have taxes on the con side and representation on the pro. Anything else? I understand that income tax is relatively new, but what were the reasons people out west wanted statehood in the 1800s?

In fact, come to think of it, I have no idea about the difference between states and territories, except that states get senators and representatives. Surely everyone who lives in a territory isn’t disenfranchised though? And surely the feds don’t let territories get a free ride; don’t they pay some sort of taxes?

36

yeah because adding a few more stars to the flag costs millions of dollars and takes years :rolleyes:

37

The real reason is political will. Democrats and Republican don’t want another state that will give the other party two more Senate seats.

For instance, if you made DC a state there is a 99.9% probability it would have two Democratic Senators. So to get Republicans to go along with the idea you’d need another state that was 99.9% likely to produce two Republican Senators.

DC is out of the running also because it’s populaton once was over 800,000 people and it was actually bigger than a lot of western states. Now that is not the case. DC has just under 600,000 people and is only bigger than Wyoming today

When AL and HA were admitted this was the case. It was assumed one would be basically Democrtic and one Republican. In 1954 then President Eisenhower gave a State of the Union address, and requested the immediate admission of Hawaii into the Union but did not mention Alaska.

It was thought Hawaii was going to be Republican and Alaska Democratic. However the reverse turned out to be true.

There are no minimum population restrictions anywhere. Congress has set various minimums throughout history from 60,000 to over 150,000. Congress can set them as well as unset them

And even then it’s doubtful any minumum would pass a test, as Nevada had only about 40,000 when it was admitted and the law said 60,000. So it’s clear that law stating minimum population is not enforceable. Even though Nevada eventually passed 60,000 by 1880 by 1900 it was back down to 42,000 people. (There was some talk of taking away Nevada’s statehood, but that is all it was talk, that could never have been done.)

State can split to form new states, as long as the state itself concents and the Congress does to. This would never happen as the Democrats and Republicans would have to be 100% certain the balance would be there.

Two states can join together to form a state, as long as both states and Congress consents. Again very unlikely as they would go form 4 Senators to 2 Senators.

And parts of two states can join t form a new third state. The most talk about example of this is "The State of Jefferson (proposed). This would be Northern California and Southern Oregon

The real reason is there is no poltical will.

38

Of course, as noted in the article, that was more of a publicity stunt than a serious attempt, as the instigators were well aware of the congressional approval issues involved. They wished to call attention to the horrible condition of the state highways in those counties, which they felt was being ignored by both Sacramento and Salem.

39

Remember the body of Senators is divided to run on staggered 6-year terms so that save when there has been a filling of a vacancy, each state does **not **elect both its Senators simultaneously. Senator B runs on what would be year 4 of the Senator A’s term and Senator A goes for reelection on year 2 of Senator B’s term, but nobody goes more than 4 years w/o voting. This could lead to claims of disenfranchisement or double-franchisement if a reapportionment happens between those two dates, as opposed to the Reps who are all elected simultaneously, so the rule is to elect Senators “at-large”.

Wrong.

Or rather, only right in the general notional sense that at any time in an election cycle the People may petition the national government for action. But as far as what’s on the ballot and what gets a mandate in each election, Guam and PR have a choice every election cycle to elect a new governor, territorial legislature, Congressional delegate, pass voter referenda, etc. Period.
These officials may in turn run on a platform of advocating statehood (as, for example, do the current governor, delegate and 2/3 of both territorial houses in Puerto Rico). There may even also be a local referendum (3 times in the last 42 years) on whether the population wants statehood vs. independence vs. statu quo vs. other (by PR Supreme Court jurisprudence it HAS to be multiple choice, if it’s locally enacted) that is won by statehood with a majority (as I said THAT has NOT yet happened here)

Which both would mean jack diddly squat towards becoming a state unless and until Congress passes an enabling act spelling the terms and conditions under which admission would happen, has the territory’s citizens vote to ratify it, and then Congress again greenlights the actual admission. As things stand, the Congress has N E V E R presented a vote to the citizens of PR on Statehood v. Independence v. Improving What Exists that includes any kind of mandate.

40

No, it isn’t.

While there was a clause in the 1845 annexation document that allowed for Texas to be divided up into as many as five states, no “predistricting” ever took place. If anything, you could argue that Texas was in fact already divided up into several states, because at the time of annexation, Texans claimed that their territory included half of present-day New Mexico and part of Colorado.

–robby (native Texan)