As of 2010, the year of the last US Census, more than 4.7 million American citizens had no representation within the US Senate and disproportionate non-voting representation in the US House of Representatives—the legislative body created for the expressed purpose of apportioning representation. That is 2% of the 2010 US population; five territories—American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands—and the District of Columbia, without full representation in the Federal government. To clarify, when I say that these citizens have disproportionate representation what I mean to say is that Representatives to these territories have not been apportioned based on their population. To be fair, this would not matter in most cases. With the exception of Puerto Rico, which is woefully underrepresented, each territory would only receive one Representative based on their population, as shown in Figure A, below. One additional clarifying note; DC is a Federal District, not a territory, however, in the interest of concision I will refer to “territories” as all areas with US citizens that currently do not have representation within the Federal Government.
Figure A:
Obviously without any Senators these territories are also under represented within the Senate.
In recent weeks the call for statehood of these territories, specifically for DC and Puerto Rico, has grown among Democrats in response to the, at least, perceived undemocratic overreach by the Republican party in nominating, and likely confirming, Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. I will briefly summarize the Democratic position as I understand it here. In 2016, when Justice Scalia passed away, a vacancy in the Supreme Court arose. President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill this vacancy. President Obama’s nomination was met with opposition from Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, who refused to hold nomination hearings for over eight months arguing that during an election year the people should have their say in who nominates and confirms Supreme Court Justices. Four years later Justice Ginsberg died and President Trump nominated a replacement to the Supreme Court with a little over a month until the 2020 election. The very same Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, moved quickly to confirm President Trump’s nominee, this time arguing that when the President and Senate are of the same party, Supreme Court nominees are confirmed during election years—a qualifier conspicuously absent from the argument posited four years prior. Based on Democrats reading of the events over the last four years Republicans had stolen two Supreme Court seats; or at the very least one by breaking from the precedent Senate Republicans established in 2016.
To put a finer point on this, the latest Supreme Court Justice will be nominated by a President who lost the popular vote by 2.8 million votes and confirmed by Senate Republicans who received 10.3 million fewer votes in the 2016 election and 7.3 million fewer votes in the 2018 election. This was made possible by the electoral college system and the structure of the Senate, which is weighted toward smaller states (for further discussion on of these systems refer to my other post, A Proportional Response: Creating an Ideologically Diverse and Representative Electoral System).
Ultimately, what Democrats are observing is an institution in the US Senate that is not responsive to democratic pressures, i.e. popular elections. The proposed solution is to admit additional states to the US, thus extending voting rights to existing US citizens who previously were under represented in the Federal Government. DC and Puerto Rico are frequent candidates as DC is larger Vermont and Wyoming, and Puerto Rico is larger than Iowa and 19 other states, per 2019 Census population estimates. This has been described as a radical-leftists plot and a nuclear option for Democrats. It is more than a bit disturbing that extending the right to vote to American citizens, and these are American citizens we are talking about here, is considered radical or a nuclear option because it might shift the balance of power towards one party. Others have made the moral argument for expanding voter enfranchisement to the citizens of American Samoa, DC, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, so I will not retread those here. Instead I would like to briefly examine the argument that extending voting rights to these territories would benefit one party over the other; and more specifically, benefit Democrats.
First, we should look at the effect the addition of each of these territories would have on the various political structures at the Federal level. Refer to Figure B, below.
Figure B:
*Residents of DC are able to vote in Presidential elections and currently have 3 Electoral College votes. Accordingly, I have excluded DC from the analysis above as they would not change the dynamics of this specific institution.
As this shows, the addition of any one of these territories would not have a significant impact on either legislative house or the Electoral College. The greatest impact would be in the Senate with each territory having 1.79% of the total representation. Though one should keep in mind that this distribution of influence would be equitable across all states, and decreased from the 2% influence currently held by each state in the Senate. Further Puerto Rico would have the largest impact on the House of Representatives with 1.12% of total Representatives and the Electoral College with 1.26% of EC votes. The aggregate impact can be seen above as well, and is more significant for the Senate representing 10.71% of Senators. However, if this is a concern to either party it assumes that these territories are a monolith and will vote for one party over the other. This same monolithic assumption is at play when looking at the effect of any territory on the Senate or Puerto Rico on the House of Representatives.
With that understanding, we will first look at the more straightforward cases of American Samoa, DC, Guam, and US Virgin Islands. As shown in Figure C, below, these territories tend to vote along the more traditional Democratic/Republican party line divide, though American Samoa and US Virgin Islands have shown a stronger tendency toward third-party and independent candidates. Now, it should be understood that if these elections held actual stakes for either of the two political parties, there would likely be increased party involvement to win the elections pulling votes to either of the two major parties and these elections would more closely resemble the vote spread seen in current states.
Figure C:
Each of these territories would have only one representative based on 2010 Census apportionment, so individually would not have a dramatic impact on the House of Representatives or Presidential elections with three Electoral College votes. Again, refer to Figure B, above, for a breakdown of the impact of each territory.
As for the Senate, where these territories would have a slightly greater effect, it is a bit difficult to predict the exact outcome. It is fairly safe to say that DC and the US Virgin Islands would be Democratic strongholds with two Democratic Senators likely based on historical voter turnout. American Samoa and Guam, however, are a bit less clear. Guam is fairly evenly divided and even appears to be shifting right over the past four elections. It does not seem unreasonable that Guam could be a swing state and split its Senatorial representation between Democrats and Republicans. American Samoa actually swung strongly towards Republicans in 2016. However, given the strong historical support for Independents, the equity in past elections between Democrats and Republicans, and the recent swing towards Republicans, American Samoa too could split its Senatorial representation. For those counting, that is a net gain of four Senators for Democrats.
Turning to the two remaining territories, Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico, the effect is a little less clear, as shown in Figure D, below.
Figure D:
Both Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico have strong Independent parties. Though, as stated above, this is likely allowed by the two parties due to the inconsequential nature of these elections on the balance of power at the Federal level. If made states, these two territories would very likely fall inline with the rest of the nation, deciding contests between Democrats and Republicans. In the context of Northern Mariana Islands, this would likely result in Democratic representation as Gregorio Sablan, Independent Mariana Islands Representative, caucuses with the Democrats.
The largest, and most consequential, prize of these territories, with 5 Representatives and 7 Electoral College votes, is Puerto Rico. The electoral results of 100% for ‘Other’ is misleading as these votes are fairly evenly split between the Popular Democratic Party and the New Progressive Party, though the New Progressive Party has won four of the last five elections. To confuse matters further, members of the New Progressive Party are affiliated with both the Democratic and Republican parties—the last four New Progressive Party Representatives have been evenly split between the parties, two apiece, with the current Representative, Jenniffer Gonzalez, caucusing with the Republicans. As such, this indicates that Puerto Rico would also likely split representation within the House and Senate. As such, the 1.12% and 1.79% effect Puerto Rico would have on the House and Senate, respectively, would likely not wholly benefit one party over the other.
At final count, that would be a net benefit of six Senate seats for Democrats. And that’s assuming quite a bit; (1) that these voting trends hold up once parties actively campaign in these territories, (2) that voter alignment holds after voters are able to see the results of full representation for their states, and (3) that each of these territories want to be admitted as states.
That last assumption is entirely important. With the exception of DC, each of these territories should be given the option of full statehood or complete autonomy. I exclude DC because as the seat of the nation’s Capital and part of the contiguous US it is not feasible that the Federal District is given full autonomy.
Obviously, there is a long tradition of adding states over the almost 250-year history of the US; we started as 13 states and expanded to 50. The flag raised by the Marines over Iwo Jima only had 48 stars. Those missing two stars? Hawaii and Alaska, both granted statehood in 1959.
Ultimately, what I just laid out above was extraneous. The status quo with our territories is undemocratic and therefore inconsistent with ideals we as Americas espouse. I have made appeals to our history and tradition, and it is true that America has a history and tradition of colonialism, but when I make appeals to history and tradition it is when that history and those traditions are consistent with our democratic ideals. And so, it is time to grant statehood or autonomy to our territories; not for the political machinations of the parties, but because it is consistent with our ideals and our traditions.
