Support Grows for Statehood for DC and Puerto Rico

Public support for DC statehood, mostly mirroring the Democratic Party’s increasing popularity, has been increasing, if modestly. A YouGov survey in September of 2020 found that 43% of the public supported DC statehood while 34% opposed, up from 35% in support in 2019. However, almost all of the increase in support came from Democrats, who increased their level of support from 47% to 69% while the increase for independents was modest, up to 30% from 27%, and support from Republicans actually declined.

A Harris poll in late June 2020 gave somewhat different results from the YouGov survey. It found that 48% of those queried supported statehood and 52% opposed; interestingly, the partisan tilt of this survey was somewhat attenuated. Fifty eight percent of Democrats supported statehood for DC vs. 43% of Republicans and 41% of independents.

While support for DC statehood is not overwhelming, it also enjoys the support of the Democratic candidate for President, Joe Biden, who also supports statehood for Puerto Rico. This contrasts sharply with Biden’s apparent opposition to adding justices to the Supreme Court, another non-traditional move often urged by many in the Deomcratic Party.

It seems likely that if a Biden agenda is significantly obstructed by the courts, he will be pressured by the left wing of the Democratic Party to support adding justices to the Supreme Court and to support statehood for Washington DC and Puerto Rico. It seems unlikely that Biden would then oppose both of these tactics to enhance Democratic Party power.

To oppose both an expansion of the Supreme Court, and statehood for Puerto Rico and DC, especially in the face of stringent GOP opposition to Biden’s agenda, might dramatically increase the chances of a left wing revolt in the Democratic Party.

Statehood for the District of Columbia would almost certainly increase the Democratic Party’s chances of passing bills in the Senate. Unquestionably, the District of Columbia is a Democratic-party stronghold; Donald Trump got only 4% of the DC vote in the 2016 presidential election; Mitt Romney got 7.3% in 2012. So, DC statehood almost definitely means two additional Democratic Party (or at least largely Democratic-party supporting) senators and one Democratic voting member of the House of Representatives. And the Democratic Party has already acted on the idea, albeit in a somewhat powerless environment.

In June 2020 the House of Representative passed a DC Statehood bill which predicably the Republican-controlled Senate refused to take up. Though the bill will go nowhere in the current political environment, its passage in the House reflects growing support for the idea, at least in the Democratic Party. Indeed, the 2020 measure passed 232–180 but a similar measure, proposed in 1993, lost 153–277. Democratic Party control of the White House and both houses of Congress, if achieved, would almost certainly revive the idea, particularly if a Biden agenda faces robust opposition, as expected.

Democrats will also definitely retain control of the House of Representatives in 2020 and most observers give them an 80% to 90% chance of winning the White House. Most expect that they will control the Senate as well but the outlook is far less certain with various prognosticators giving Democrats a 65% to 75% chance of controlling the Senate. Without support from at least 50% of the Senate (A Vice President Harris would likely be the tie-breaking vote) Democrats would probably not be able to muster a majority to pass a DC statehood bill, presuming no Republicans support the measure, a convincing assumption.

Even if they do win control of the Senate, Democrats would likely have to eliminate the Senate fillibuster rule, which effectively requires 60% rather than a simple majority for passage of a bill — in order to push through DC statehood.

While Republican Party opposition to both DC and Puerto Rico statehood is more or less assured, Republican (and general electorate) opposition to DC statehood is much stronger than opposition to Puerto Rican statehood.

Public support for statehood for Puerto Rico has always been higher than for Washington DC. A July 2019 Gallup poll found that 66% of Americans favored admitting Puerto Rico as a state; 83% of Democrats supported statehood vs. only 45% of Republicans.

Unlike in DC, where support for statehood regularly exceeds 80% of the electorate, support for statehood in Puerto Rico itself is a more volatile local political issue, and this may represent an opportunity for domestic US opponents of Puerto Rican statehood to make this an argument against statehood.

In addition, the Republican Party has made inroads in Puerto Rican itself in recent years and the island is probably less fully reliable than DC as a consistent source of safe Senate seats for Democrats. Puerto Rico’s current congresswoman is a Republican, for example, as is its current governor. But at least in the short term, Puerto Rican statehood should boost the Democrats in the Senate.

And although Puerto Rico’s 3.2 million people cannot vote in US Presidential elections, the 5.5 million Americans of Puerto Rican descent, including an estimated 650,000 in the key presidential swing state of Florida, give Puerto Rico a hidden political punch that can be used to prod or punish US politicians . Traditionally, Puerto Ricans in the USA have leaned left, even more than most other Hispanic Groups. A 2018 Pew Research Center Survey — National Survey of Latinos — found that

“Hispanic eligible voters of Puerto Rican and/or Mexican descent — regardless of voter registration status — were more likely than those of Cuban descent to identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party (65% of Puerto Rican Americans and 59% of Mexican Americans vs. 37% of Cuban Americans identified as Democrats). A majority of Cuban eligible voters identified as or leaned toward the Republican Party (57%).”

Conseuqently, opponents of Puerto Rican statehood risk alientating nearly 9 million individuals of Puerto Rican descent at at time when the ultimate voting identity of the US voter of Hispanic extraction is currently and will become an even more important factor in determining political party success in the United States.

However, Puerto Rico’s somewhat messy domestic financial circumstances may reduce US public support for statehood. In recent years Puerto Rico has been hit hard by Hurricane Maria, then by the coronavirus — all of which compounded a pre-existing fiscal debt crisis. Puerto Rico is currently in the process of restructuring its substantial state debts after declaring a form of bankruptcy in 2017. Unlike most US states, Puerto Rico had been able to accumulate substantial budget deficits, which it did, potentially complicating statehood politics.

Court challenges to new statehood are not unlikely. Indeed, Republicans have wielded such arguments even when they are more or less legislatively unneccessary. The Trump Administration has argued that statehood for DC would violate the 23rd Amendment. The 23'rd Amendment enabled residents of the District of Columbia to vote in presidential elections and to choose electors to the electoral college in proportion to the District’s population subject to the stipulation that it be limited to not more than the number of the least populous state. New laws establishing DC as a state would not eliminate the District of Columbia which is constitutionally designated for the Federal Governement. But it would shrink it and assign most of its territory to the new state.

Skeptics of DC statehood say that the 23'rd Amendment, which gave DC its electoral votes, would mean that re-orienting it for statehood would violate the 23rd Amendment which gives the area designated for the Federal Government its own electoral vote. But the 23'rd Amendment allows Congress to apportion these electoral votes any way it specifies, which it could do, for example, by apportioning it in accordance with the votes cast in the new State. The language in the act is very broad and most scholars believe that granting DC statehood would not require a constitutional amendment, as prior grants of statehood for other states have not required. However, in the current contentious political environment, in which recourse to the courts is likely to meet many new Democratic party supported policies, a challenge is nonetheless likely.