Let's Add More States!
(Not Canada)
How did you react when you saw the headlines that Trump had suggested to Canada’s Prime Minister that Canada should become the fifty-first state of America?
Now, besides the fact that Trump was probably joking, I would not be surprised if he were thinking about adding states as a way to secure his legacy. Earlier Sunday, Trump made comments suggesting reclaiming control of the Panama Canal. And let’s not forget that back in 2019, Trump suggested purchasing Greenland from Denmark.
My first reaction to these comments is not to take them seriously. Trump’s tactic seems to be to bully allies because allies are the ones you have leverage over. But this seems to be a common theme, that Trump wants to expand the United States. If he were serious about this, there are some candidates already available: make US territories into states.
A Case for Statehood
People born in US territories are US nationals, but residents of the territories are not able to vote for president and cannot elect representatives or senators to Congress. Now, maybe from a mathematical perspective, you could argue that most US citizens’ votes for president don’t matter anyway. But I would argue that there is a specific situation where, regardless of whom you elect, merely having representation in Congress makes a difference. That is disaster relief.
Back in 2017, three of the worst hurricane events in history hit the United States. Hurricane Harvey hit Texas and Louisiana in August, led to over 100 deaths, and cost an estimated $125 billion. Harvey was followed by Irma, which hit Florida in September. Irma is estimated to have killed 134 people and cost Florida $50 billion. Maria followed weeks later and is estimated to have killed 2975 people in Puerto Rico alone and cost Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands $90 billion in damages. Just for comparison, I want to remind readers that just under 3000 people died in 9/11. According to the National Hurricane Center, where I got the cost estimates, as of January 26, 2018:
For all United States hurricanes , Katrina (2005) is the costliest storm on record. Hurricane Harvey (2017) ranks second, Hurricane Maria (2017) ranks third, Hurricane Sandy (2012) ranks fourth and Hurricane Irma (2017) ranks fifth. Hurricane Maria is the costliest hurricane on record to strike Puerto Rico and the U.S Virgin Islands.
Trump was president back in 2017, and his administration held up funds for disaster relief to Puerto Rico. The reasons given by the administration for the delays were also applicable to efforts in Florida and Texas, yet those states continued to have access to their funding.
Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are in a much worse position when it comes to accessing federal aid, compared to Texas and Florida. Texas and Florida have representation in Congress who are empowered to investigate, call witnesses, and otherwise drag bureaucrats on a public stage to answer questions about why their constituents aren’t being served.
The territories send delegates to Congress, but they don’t have equal powers as those elected from states.
In a system of checks and balances, where the executive and legislative branches can fight for limited funding, a territory that offers no electoral votes for a president and sends no representatives or senators to Congress, is at the mercy of other self-interested parties courting their constituents.
This is wrong.
Americans in the territories are still Americans. Their lives and deaths still matter, even if their votes do not.
And their votes should matter.
Meet the Territories
Could you name all the inhabited US territories? I don’t recall learning about them in school, but it’s easy enough to look them up. There are two territories in the Caribbean: Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands; and three in the South Pacific:the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and American Samoa.
Here is a map of the territories, along with US Minor Outlying Islands, in the Pacific.
Guam is the southernmost of the Mariana Islands, but I couldn’t figure out a way to zoom in on that archipelago without losing the neighboring countries that are useful for establishing where these islands sit in the Pacific. I recommend checking it out on Google Maps. You can see they are surrounded to the north and west by Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. American Samoa is further out in the South Pacific.
Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands are near each other, British Virgin Islands, and Hispaniola. They are near enough to Florida that they can expect to experience the same threats from hurricanes.
Millions of people live in the Caribbean territories, and there are hundreds of thousands in the Pacific territories.
What about Independence?
If a territory prefers independence to statehood, the United States ought to support that decision. It is really this uncanny valley of statehood that’s a rough place for the territories to stay in. At the very least, it should be put to their voters to have the opportunity to consider statehood as an option.
With all this in mind, which of these states would we predict could even have the opportunity for statehood?
A Practical Matter
The Constitutional provides Congress with the power to admit new states in Article IV, section 3. As it currently stands, both the incoming House of Representatives and the incoming Senate will be controlled by Republicans. They are unlikely to admit any state into the union that would disrupt their control over Congress. So for this exercise, we need to look at how the territories voted, with a focus on their delegates.
Based on the votes for delegates to the House of Representatives, Guam and American Samoa would make sense strategically for Republicans, since those territories voted overwhelmingly for their respective Republican delegates.
If American Samoa and Guam were offered statehood and if they accepted, and if their recent delegate election is any indication of how they would vote for representation in Congress, one could expect two additional Republican seats in the House of Representatives and four additional Republican seats in the Senate. Since membership in the House of Representatives is capped, this would likely lead to California, the most populous state, and a solidly blue state, losing seats.
Overall, Republicans would expect to gain from offering statehood to American Samoa and Guam.
Strategy
Given how much of an important edge admitting American Samoa and Guam would be to the Republican Party in Congress, should Democrats support admitting them?
To my knowledge, it does not require any votes from Democrats in Congress for a Republican-controlled House and Senate to pass bills offering statehood to territories. If the Republicans wanted it to happen, it would happen.
I mean, should everyday Democratic voters support admitting American Samoa and Guam to the union?
The last time the Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and presidency (2021-2023), they could have offered statehood to the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. There were even calls to admit the District of Columbia as a state.
They would have been right to do so, and it would have (in expectation) improved their control over Congress.
It’s hard to argue for consistency when folks tend to tie their identities to their politics, but I will do it here anyway. The folks in American Samoa and Guam are as deserving of representation as the folks in blue territories. When disaster strikes, they should be as able to access federal funding as any other state. Given the self-interested nature of politicians, Republican-leaning territories may only have a chance to enter the union as states during Republican trifectas.
The right thing to do is to offer them the option of statehood and, if they choose to accept, welcome them, even if it flies in the face of Democratic strategy.