Q Day 5: 51st State?

Bart asks:

What will be the 51st state? DC? Puerto Rico? A handful of conservative counties in Colorado? A wildcard?

I continue to think that the failure of the Democrats to push DC statehood in 2009 (and, for that matter, 1993) was odd, at best, and inexplicably foolish, at worst. The District certainly has the best case for statehood (and, yes, there's also a legitimate case for just returning it to Maryland). But Democrats seem mostly uninterested in pushing something which most of them agree with on the merits, not to mention something which would get them two safe Senate seats.

As far as I can tell, nothing else is close. So I'll say that the most likely possibility is that Tea Party Republicans win Congress and the presidency and chop up a reliably Republican state to make two reliably Republican states. Utah, maybe? The Colorado plan doesn't work as well; it would presumably create two safe Republican Senate seats, but make the rest of the state, which is now a lean-Democratic state, into a safe one for Democrats. But maybe they would do that one, too.

Really -- I don't expect much of anything any time soon. But those are the two most likely, with anything else requiring significant changes in the parties or something more dramatic (I don't know...what if Florida becomes an island from the oceans rising; could island Florida want to split from mainland Florida? Or would it just be like Michigan and the UP, or New York and Long Island?).

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Aubrey Huff, 36.

A  bit of good stuff:

1. A DC Statehood bill is introduced. I'm sort of thinking it won't quite pass this year...Mike DeBonis is not amused.

2. Brian Beutler on Plan B, which he sees as a Boehner misfire. Could be.

3. Dan Drezner isn't particularly upset about the Kagans.

4. And what's up with TSA, by Amy Zegart.

The Obvious Way to Fix the EC Tie Problem

Necessary preface: I think it's highly unlikely that we'll get an Electoral College tie, and I don't really think it's a big deal if we do -- assuming that Republicans in the House would have the votes (which appears highly likely), they would simply announce immediately that they were voting for Mitt Romney, and everyone would agree that the election was over with Romney the winner. Recount and lawsuit issues could leave the election muddled, but a tie per se is highly unlikely to do so.

At any rate: someone over the last few days was tweeting out an old blog post which argued that the problem could be fixed by simply increasing the size of the House of Representatives by one, to 436. That would make the Electoral College number odd: 436 plus 100 from the Senate plus three for the District of Columbia under the 23rd amendment would equal 539.

It's a bad idea! Sure, it would solve the Electoral College problem, if you think it is a problem (I'm skeptical, but there is at least some possibility of mischief if the election goes to the House). But only at the expense of having an even number in the House, which just pushes the problem there. The Senate by design has an even number, but also a tiebreaker; the House really would have a mess if the parties had an absolute tie.

But really this is just an excuse to mention that the obvious solution is DC statehood. Then you get to keep the House at 435, but with the repeal of the 23rd you eliminate the extra three. Post-statehood, you have 435 plus 102 plus 0, for 537.

(The way you get around the Constitution is that Democrats draw a New Columbia map that includes all of the regular residents of the District except for a handful of reliably Democratic voters, and move that as a regular statehood resolution while simultaneously moving a Constitutional amendment... you could either do the amendment to simply repeal the 23rd amendment electoral votes for the resident-free remaining Federal District, or you could make DC a regular state and get rid of the Federal District entirely. Given that the choice for Republicans would be to agree to the amendment or give the Democrats three extra Electoral Votes, my guess is it would take about a week for the thing to get through Congress and enough states. Once, that is, Democrats had enough votes to pass the statehood law through both Chambers. Of course, this only happens in years with unified Democratic control).

Okay, look -- I know that the House is often not at full strength, and survives just fine with an even number of Members. And, yes, once again, I think that an Electoral College tie is both unlikely and, if it happens, unlikely to cause trouble. But as long as people are talking about it, I might as well bring this one up again.

DC Statehood and Party Strategies

One of this blog's hobbyhorses, D.C. Statehood, is back in the news today, thanks to an NYT op-ed from historian Kate Masur. Jamelle Bouie has more. Both of them blame race and partisanship for the failure to secure meaningful democracy for the District.

If I recall correctly, my old posts on this consisted mainly of wondering, without any answer, about why Democrats in the historic 111th Congress didn't press the issue -- especially during the brief window of 60 Democrats in the Senate. But I think, now, that I have the answer, although I'll admit that it's speculative. It's not race or partisanship, per se, although both obviously set the stage for it.

No, I think perhaps the reason is that for whatever reason, in recent years Republicans have tended to use their best legislative and executive chances to secure long-term electoral advantages, while Democrats have tended to use theirs to enact substantive policy. (see my previous post on this here, Kevin Drum here, and me again here). As I said, I'm very reluctant to assert that there are long-term strategic differences between the parties, but this sure seems to be one.

Remember, the point here isn't that the Democrats are especially spineless (or that Republicans are especially ruthless) -- it's that they (may) think about, and use, power differently. On the whole, I tend to think that Democrats have the better strategy...there was no conservative policy triumph equivalent to ACA during the Bush years, in my view. Using majorities to "consolidate" power is, I think, futile. But others disagree.

Speaking of which...this also explains another of this blog's hobbyhorses, the GOP certainty that Democrats are going to re-instate the Fairness Doctrine in order to shut down Rush Limbaugh and other conservative radio hosts. If it's true that conservatives do think as Drum and I have speculated, then their belief is explained because they know that that's what they would do if they were in a similar situation. And guess what? As soon as they gained a majority in the House (at least this time around), conservatives moved quickly to defund NPR, which they see as the liberal alternative to conservative talk radio.

I do want to caution that this is only speculative, and I can think of several counterexamples. Still, there does appear to be a pattern here. And it does help explain what I think is otherwise a very puzzling lack of interest by national Democrats in DC statehood in 2009.

A Bit More on DC Statehood

Just a short note here on E.D. Kain's latest comments on the DC Statehood question.  To clarify my position on it...my main interest in the issue is that I find it totally puzzling that liberals did not urge Democrats to take advantage of their brief large majorities in Congress to enact Statehood.  Beyond that, on the question of statehood itself, my feeling is (1) that the status quo is not justifiable, and that (2) the various reasons I've heard arguing against statehood all seem pretty weak to me.  That said, both returning the district to Maryland (Kain's preference) and statehood would solve the violation of democracy that makes the status quo problematic.

Kain objects what would certainly be a power grab to add two new Democratic Senators.  But the Maryland option would be the reverse: it would have no effect on the Senate, but it would, following what would certainly be the repeal of the 23rd Amendment, remove three electoral votes from the Democrats.  So either way, solving the democracy problem would have partisan political effects.  In the abstract, as I have said, I think there's a good case to be made that statehood would help ameliorate the overrepresentation of rural areas in the Senate.  But obviously, in reality, this sort of decision is made on partisan grounds, one way or another.

Represent

E.D. Kain opposes DC Statehood on three grounds, against Andrew Sullivan's insistence on representation for the citizens of the District.  One, I think, is based on a misguided reading of the politics of statehood; the second is nothing more than a prejudice; and the third, based on principles, I think is wrong.  My main interest here is the third one, on representation, but I'll take them one by one.

First, he thinks that it would be an unfair advantage:

DC is at the very heart of the country’s power structure. It is the part-time residence of every one of our federal elected officials. While voters may indeed lack proper representation, giving DC the added clout of two Senators and a number of representatives, plus all the other perks that come from statehood, would vastly tip the scales in DC’s favor.

The problem with this theory is that the interests of Members of Congress as part-time and temporary residents of Congress often clash with the interests of the people who actually live in the District.   So if anything, permanent District residents are bound to be in worse shape, not better shape, than residents of Alaska or North Dakota if they want to govern themselves without Federal government influence.  This is easy to see, since the District is not currently (nor has it as far as I know ever been) a paradise overflowing with government spending or any other clout-derived benefits. 

Second, Kain doesn't like the idea of a city-state:

[I]f DC can be its own state based solely off of the size of its population, why shouldn’t other cities also become states? New York City has far more people than DC. Perhaps each of the Burroughs could become a state. 

Well -- why not?  Makes as much sense as having large mostly empty states, to me.   Obviously, for various historical reasons, the fifty states are what they are -- but there's no underlying logic or sense to them.   After all, prior to 1960 there were no states remotely like Alaska or Hawaii, but those have worked out just fine.    There's little question in my mind that current residents of the District think of themselves as citizens of a politically separate jurisdiction, certainly more so than people in "North Dakota" presumably thought prior to their statehood.   Thinking that a city can't be a state is just prejudice, not argument.

Third, Kain believes that there's a principle at stake here:

Then again, the representative system in this country was never meant to be entirely based on population. As with every other aspect of our government, our electoral system acts as a set of checks and balances. That may be frustrating, but it is what it is...This is why we have two bodies in Congress – the House and the Senate. Each state gets equal representation in the Senate, but not in the House. Granting DC statehood makes sense if we’re going to base our representative structure on population alone, but that’s not how this country works, and that isn’t likely to change any time soon.

Here's the thing about representation, something that is I think fairly little known: political representation is a really, really new idea, historically speaking.  For example, you won't find it in Shakespeare, because it hadn't really been invented yet.  By 1776 it was an established and recognized fact in England, but there was very little systematic thought about it yet (Burke's famous speech to the Electors of Bristol was in November, 1774)..  So in large part, the Framers were making it up as they went along; Madison's insights into democracy and representation were really very new, really original.  It wouldn't be surprising at all if their understanding of representation was not fully mature.  Folks back then thought that women didn't need to vote, and they had ideas about representation to support that notion, but they got that wrong -- and they got representation of arbitrary pieces of land wrong, too, to the extent they believed in it.  Anyway, as we know, the House/Senate distinction wasn't made on principle; it was a compromise forced on everyone by political necessity.  So while we're stuck with it, we don't have to embrace it as a virtue or a founding principle. 

The truth is that the American political system has rejected representation of places, not people, at every other stage of the political process, ever since the "one person, one vote" Court decisions of the early 1960s.  And as far as I can tell, everyone is pretty much OK with that in virtually every context.  No one is arguing that states would be better off -- more democratic -- if they had upper chambers apportioned by counties, not population.  The Senate is an unfortunate anachronism, one that we're stuck with, but not one that can be justified with any recognizably contemporary democratic theory.

(And don't even think about trying the old Reagan saw about the states creating the Federal government and not the other way around.  Perhaps 13 states could make that argument (against 37 the other way), but even there a map a 1770 Virginia isn't going to remind anyone too much of 2010 Virginia...and the Constitution is authored by We the People, not We the States).

None of this demands that representation of the citizens of the District can only be achieved through statehood, as opposed to the Maryland option. But Kain's arguments against statehood in principle strike me as wrong or misguided.   In reality, as with all statehood decisions, it comes down to political expediency, but in my view supporters have nothing to be embarrassed on the merits, certainly not the merits on democratic grounds, of DC statehood.

Statehood, Again

Matt Yglesias makes the partisan argument for DC statehood (but appears to be as puzzled as I am about why liberals didn't push for it in 2009); Andrew Sullivan makes the enfranchisement argument.  James Joyner, and some commenters to my previous post, argue for giving the district back to Maryland, which solves the enfranchisement problem. 

Yglesias refers to the principled argument...I'm not sure which argument he's referring to, but I'll toss one in.  As regular readers know, I'm not a supporter of majoritarianism, so Madisonian elements of the American system such as separated institutions sharing powers, bicameralism, and various Senate rules don't bother me in principle (and indeed I think many of those features are excellent in theory and practice).  However, there is simply no good democratic argument for the composition of the Senate, and unfortunately the two-per-state rule is also just about the hardest thing to reform.  Constitutionally, it's as set in stone as anything.  If everyone within the system agreed to work around it, one could devise a solution; for example, it's theoretically possible to move state borders around to make the states equal, or at least less egregiously unequal, in population.  However, in practical political terms, that solution is probably even more implausible than a Constitutional fix.

Fortunately, the practical effects of Senate malapportionment have never been very important to partisan outcomes (although, alas, I don't have citations for studies of it).  There are (and again, my apologies for not having the citations) however some policy biases in favor of rural areas.  In other words, neither Democrats nor Republicans are helped, but rural interests are helped and urban interests hurt.  And thus the case for DC statehood: it's a work-around to redress the overall undemocratic Constitutional bias in favor of rural areas. 

Beyond that, I think the case against statehood is weak.  Yes, the District has a tiny population, but it's not tiny compared to Wyoming or North Dakota.  Sullivan links to questions about fiscal viability, but I do suspect those concerns could be dealt with (given a Congressional majority large enough to support statehood in the first place).  Two commenters brought up the 23rd Amendment as an issue, but I really don't think it's a serious problem: if and when Congress approved statehood, I suspect everyone concerned could rapidly pass a new amendment repealing the District's Electoral College votes.  Who would (at that point) oppose it? 

None of which, however, answers my original question, which is why liberals and partisan Democrats didn't push statehood.  For that, I need to hear from liberals and/or partisan Democrats (not Sullivan, then) who didn't support it (not Yglesias, who I think has posted quite a few times about it).  Anyone?

State, Your Preference

Looks as if the DC vote-in-the-House bill has died, again. 

I still don't understand why the Democrats didn't just push through DC statehood while they had the chance, during the brief period in which they had 60 votes in the Senate.  Even more so, I really can't understand why no one within the Democratic coalition even bothered trying to push for DC statehood during this Congress (the Constitutionally-safe option would be the carve-out, leaving a small Federal District with the monuments and some government buildings, including the White House and Capitol, along with a small state that contained all the residences; it's a lot safer, Constitutionally, than the House-vote bill).  Hey, Chris Bowers and other electorally smart lefties: why didn't you fight for statehood?

The Democrats' Very Own Dakota Territory

Matt Yglesias reminds everyone today that there are two Dakotas because Republicans, when they had the chance, decided to take partisan advantage of their majorities in Congress and create two Dakotas instead of one.

Which, in turn, gives me an excuse to wonder yet again why the Democrats are not doing the same thing right now with DC Statehood. DC Statehood is, on substantive grounds, perfectly legitimate (yes, it would be a small state. So what? Plenty of precedent for that -- but no other cases similar to the District's mostly disenfranchised status). Granted, DC might not have the impressive cultural legacy of South Dakota, but I'm sure District advocates can think of one or two attractions. Moreover, and this is certainly the main point, on partisan grounds it's a big winner, since both Senators would be Democrats forever.

I haven't seen a reasonable Constitutional argument against the carve-out statehood proposal (the Constitutionally-designated District would shrink down to the tiny area where containing the White House, Congress, the Mall, and some federal buildings, while the remainder -- where actual people live -- would become a state).

And yet not only are the president and Congressional Democrats ignoring a possibly once-in-a-generation opportunity to press a major partisan advantage, but even online activists, known for their partisan fighting spirit, don't seem to care about it. A quick check of Open Left found that Chris Bowers seems interested in Puerto Rican statehood, but otherwise nothing.

I'm totally baffled by this one; it seems to me totally obvious to me that this is a no-brainer for Democrats.

Me, Clueless (DC Statehood Edition)

Can someone explain to me why the Democrats aren't pushing for DC Statehood?

I've argued before that it's an obvious play for both substantive and (especially) pure partisan reasons, but not only are elected Democrats ignoring it, but liberal activists don't seem interested, either. Why not? Indeed, the last time that Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and White House, DC Statehood made it to the floor of the House (although it lost badly, with 100 Democrats defecting and only one Republican supporter; President Clinton supported statehood, although I don't think he did anything beyond announcing his support). Democrats used to support statehood in their platform, but it seems to have disappeared; I found it in the 2000 platform, but not the two most recent ones.

Hey, I can understand some reluctance in the early 1990s; Marion Barry had only recently been Mayor, and it was easy for opponents to make the case that the District was horribly governed. Of course, they would still make that case now, but it seems to me it's a far harder argument these days.

Really, I don't get it. Even if some Democrats in marginal seats might be reluctant to support statehood, liberals (and their activists allies) should be demanding it. Even the weak House-vote-only bill has been allowed to die (over a gun amendment); where's the liberal outrage over that one?

Really, if Tom DeLay was in this situation, does anyone have any doubt at all that he'd immediately ram through a measure that gave him two extra votes in the Senate? I tend to defend Democrats against accusations that they don't play the game hard enough, but in this case I think it's dead on correct.

But perhaps I'm missing something. Can anyone explain it to me?

Leverage, Liberal Tactics, and DC Statehood

Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias today move to the subject of Chris Bowers's suggested brinkmanship strategy for progressives (threaten to sink any health care bill without a public option), which Matt summarizes as "tactical extremism." Should liberals threaten to torpedo a bill if they don't get what they want? Is it sensible for liberals to try to maximize their influence even if the stakes are fairly low this time around, because they want to maximize their long-term influence?

It seems to me that Ezra makes several good points about the slim chances of liberals really getting very much out of this strategy. Points on the extremes just have less leverage than points near the middle; the numbers are what they are, at least for this Congress. He's absolutely correct as well that conservatives wound up disappointed with Republican Congresses, and they could do little about it. On the other hand, Matt has the sensible point that even if it's a losing game, liberals would be worse off if they don't play at all -- it makes no sense for liberals to look at the numbers and fold early in the hand, rather than playing it out and getting what they can. Bottom line: it makes sense for liberals to bluff, but not to carry out their bluff.

What liberals really should be doing, however, is to figure out exactly what they can extract for their eventual cooperation with a bill they'll like, but that is far from their real preference. To me, the answer is simple: DC Statehood. DC Statehood should unite liberal Democrats (who would get two more liberals in the Senate) and marginal Democrats (who would get two more Democrats in the Senate). If there's a downside, it's small and ephemeral, while two votes in the Senate are real and tangible.

Here's A Stick: Use It

Democrats support D.C. statehood. Democrats have the votes (once Massachusetts names its new Senator) to made "New Columbia" the 51st state. D.C. statehood would cure an injustice. D.C. statehood would be a partisan move...but no more partisan than the creation of two Dakotas in the 19th century, and far more justified on the democratic principle of representation.

Democrats should pass D.C. statehood.

(The form of statehood that is possible with 60 votes in the Senate is the "cutout" option, in which the Capitol, the Supreme Court, the White House, the National Mall, the adjacent federal buildings, and virtually no actually residents become the Constitutionally described District for the Seat of the Government of the United States, while the remainder of the current district becomes a state).

If Republicans want to complain about that, let them. It will be no better or worse than complaints about death panels and czars and whatever other nonsense that Rush and Glenn Beck are spouting. The odds that statehood would be the issue that pushes voters in Arkansas or Montana or Louisiana over the edge seems awful small to me, and it's hard to believe that the GOP base would get unduly riled up over it beyond how upset they are about the rest of the Democratic agenda.

The Democrats have been pushing a bill to give the District a vote in the House; the bill passed the Senate earlier this year but stalled because the Senate added an amendment on guns that House liberals opposed. Frankly, I have no idea why Democrats settled for the House vote; the cutout option is clearly (as far as I can tell) constitutional. The biggest obstacle is that two Senate Democrats opposed the representation bill. I have no idea whether those two, Byrd and liberal fave Max Baucus, would oppose cloture on a statehood bill, but then again the two Maine Republicans voted for the bill, and might support statehood as well. Meanwhile, if the price is forcing New Columbia to include a strong 2nd Amendment type provision in their state constitution, I'd hope that they would be willing to do that. I'd also recommend that Democrats leave in the extra House seat for Utah that was part of the representation bill: why not? Hell, I'd figure out a way to give the Republicans an offset House seat for the next decade, if it meant that the handful that supported the representation bill would support statehood. No offset, of course, in the Senate.

Statehood Now!