District of Columbia: DC Statehood Bill a ‘Take That’ to Republicans | Roll Call

Despite the uphill battle for District of Columbia statehood, Sen. Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., has reintroduced a statehood bill noting that the District’s unique political status is contrary to the American values celebrated on Independence Day. “These Americans serve in our military, die defending our country, serve on our juries, and pay federal taxes,” Carper said of District residents in a statement. “Yet, despite their civic contributions, they are not afforded a vote in either chamber of Congress. This situation is simply not fair, and it isn’t consistent with the values we celebrate as a country on July 4th every year.”

Puerto Rico: Congress tackles issue of Puerto Rico’s status | The CT Mirror

For the first time since the Republican Party took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, Congress will hold a hearing on Puerto Rico’s status. Wednesday’s hearing, featuring witnesses representing all of Puerto Rico’s political parties, has been scheduled by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, the head of a House Natural Resources subcommittee. It has with authority over the five U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico. In addition to considering the island’s identity as a geo-political unit, the hearing will also focus on Puerto Rico’s severe economic problems. Young has long favored granting statehood to Puerto Rico and cosponsored legislation proposed by Resident Commisioner Pedro Pierluisi that would require a vote on the island within one year on the statehood question.

Guam: Challenge to Guam’s race-based plebiscite will go forward | Liberty Blog

The Guam legislature passed a law that allowed only “native inhabitants of Guam” to vote in an upcoming plebiscite concerning Guam’s political relationship with the United States. The plebiscite would ask native inhabitants to vote on whether Guam should seek statehood, independence, or a continued “association” with the United States. Arnold Davis is a resident of Guam, but was unable to register for the plebiscite because he was not a native inhabitant. Davis challenged the law as unconstitutional under the Fifth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The catch with this case was that the plebiscite would only occur once 70% of eligible native inhabitants registered to vote in it, and, in all likelihood, this 70% figure would never be reached. Thus,Guam argued that the case was not ripe and that Davis did not have standing to challenge the law because he could not show how he was being injured.

Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico seizes on 2016 election to push its case with candidates | The Guardian

For a small Caribbean island barely half the size of Connecticut, Puerto Rico seems to be assuming outsized importance in the race for the White House. A flying visit this week from the former Florida governor Jeb Bush – who appears ever closer to announcing his intention to seek the Republican presidential nomination – placed the US territory and its electorate of 2.4 million at the heart of his push to win back Hispanic voters. Bush, who speaks Spanish fluently and who has a Mexican wife, told supporters at public appearances in San Juan and Bayamón about the party’s need to reconnect with the Latino vote.

Editorials: In the fight for Puerto Rican statehood, is San Juan the new Selma? | Julio Ricardo Varela/Quartz

Leave it to a British comic to school us all on the least talked-about race problem in America—well, except the millions of Americans living in Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. John Oliver’s recent viral video about the Insular Cases, and their role in this country’s ugly racial past entertained and shocked a lot of Americans, just hours after President Obama told a crowd gathered in Selma that “our work is never done.” Oliver’s wit, framed around Obama’s words, created a perfect storm of discovery. Though, you would think, in 2015, this wouldn’t seem so surprising—yes, the American government was blatantly racist toward peoples conquered as spoils of war. But anyone from non-state territories like the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, or Puerto Rico—especially, Puerto Rico—could have told you that. The problem was no one was really listening until Oliver gave the Insular Cases comedic street cred.

Washington: State House bill explores statehood for East Washington | Yakima Herald Republic

A group of conservative lawmakers from east of the Cascades wants a task force to provide recommendations on how to divide Washington into two separate states. House Bill 1818 would create a task force “to determine the impacts” of dividing the state in two along the Cascade range. The bill cites heightened differences of “cultural and economic values” as the reason for exploring the split. The task force would consist of 10 members from different caucuses in the House and Senate and from the Governor’s Office. It would have to report its findings to the Legislature by the end of September this year, according to the bill.

Ukraine: Eastern Ukraine’s Fake State Is About to Elect a Fake Prime Minister | Foreign Policy

The sounds of artillery fire boomed from the northwest suburbs of Donetsk, but in the glittering foyer of what was once a downtown conference center, camouflage-clad militants toting Kalashnikovs sat in leather armchairs, paying no heed to the noise. They were keeping guard over those engaged in the important work upstairs: In the luxurious penthouse, trapped in stifling heat but cut off from the sound of shelling, Roman Lyagin worked to turn a fantasy republic into reality. Lyagin, as head of the Central Election Committee of this unrecognized nation, is writing the rules that will govern the first parliamentary elections of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, scheduled for Nov. 2. “I and some like-minded people are making a new state,” he said. “We are building the state of our dreams.”

Editorials: Is D.C. Statehood a Matter of Civil Rights? | Andrew Giambrone/The Atlantic

“No taxation without representation” has been a cliché of American politics almost since the nation’s founding, but for citizens of Washington, D.C., those words have been anything but a guarantee. Last week, a Senate committee held a hearing on the unlikely possibility of D.C. statehood. In attendance were Senators Thomas Carper, a Delaware Democrat, and Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, Mayor Vincent Gray, and Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s non-voting delegate for the House of Representatives. Along with nine panelists, they were there to discuss the New Columbia Admission Act, a bill that would incorporate the lion’s share of D.C. as the 51st state in the Union, preserve a federal enclave of monuments and buildings within the new state, and grant the district’s nearly 650,000 residents full representation in Congress. Currently, citizens of the nation’s capital are denied voting equality at the congressional level and significant autonomy locally. This set-up makes D.C. an anomaly among American municipalities and arguably relegates its residents to second-class citizens. “In the 21st century, Congress simply cannot ask our residents to continue to be voyeurs of democracy, as Congress votes on matters that affect them—how much in federal taxes they must pay, whether their sons and daughters will go to war, and even their local budget and laws—without the vote in the House and Senate required for consent of the governed.” Norton said in a prepared statement.

Editorials: Critics of D.C. statehood cite specious objections, such as Grave Snowplow Threat | Robert McCartney/The Washington Post

Why shouldn’t the District become a state? Opponents at Monday’s U.S. Senate hearing cited the grave threat that the city might gain full authority over its snowplows. You read that right. According to this objection, a self-governing District might intimidate Congress through its control of basic services for Capitol Hill. Statehood “would make the federal government dependent on an independent state, New Columbia, for everything from electrical power to water, sewers, snow removal, police and fire protection,” Roger Pilon, a constitutional scholar for the libertarian Cato Institute, testified. In Pilon’s defense, his argument is rooted in James Madison’s long-ago desire to prevent any individual state from unduly influencing Congress. But that concern is completely outdated.

District of Columbia: D.C.’s statehood movement gets an inch, takes a proverbial mile on Capitol Hill | The Washington Post

Along the walk underground from the Capitol to the Dirksen Senate Building, you traverse a long, soulless hallway with a mini train track. As the path curves around, a flag of each state hangs with a corresponding circular crest. Each state’s flag hangs in the order of its admission to the United States. Ten feet separate the flags from one another along the corridor where staffers and lawmakers shuffle between buildings. Imagine a proletariat’s version of the Kennedy Center’s Hall of States. It was in the Dirksen building that Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.) held a hearing to discuss a bill granting D.C. statehood. A small step, yes, but an important one in the grind against disenfranchisement. It wasn’t much, but those who spoke for the city did so with aplomb. The case against statehood has never looked so ridiculous. The basic underpinnings of the cause to keep D.C. from statehood are rooted in nothing but privilege and tradition, not logic. And ranking member Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) proved exactly that with his cavalier attitude toward the proceedings, snarky dismissal of the city’s chances of making it through the system, and early departure from the hearing. His approach screamed: “I don’t care because I don’t have to.”

District of Columbia: Congress takes up bill to make D.C. the 51st state | The Washington Post

D.C. residents and city lawmakers packed a Senate hearing Monday for their first chance in two decades to make the case that the nation’s capital should be the 51st state. They came prepared with statistics: $4 billion in federal income taxes are paid annually by city residents. They came with constitutional theories: D.C. residents are unfairly “subjugated” without a voting member of Congress. And they came with stacks of testimony often built around one word to describe the District’s condition. When it comes to full democracy, the rights of D.C. residents are “denied,” said Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D). From the dais, however, there wasn’t much interest. Only two senators attended the first hearing on D.C. statehood in almost 21 years. Those two were Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), who introduced the bill, and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who called the whole exercise a waste of time. Coburn then promptly left after little more than a half hour. Carper’s exact reasoning for calling the unusual hearing — and on a day that many members of his committee remained in their districts — remained unclear.

District of Columbia: D.C. statehood bill unlikely to advance beyond Senate panel’s hearing | The Washington Post

For the first time in two decades, Congress will hold a hearing on whether to allow the District to become a state. And that is where the exercise will end. In a bill that will come before a U.S. Senate committee Monday, the District would become “New Columbia,” the 51st state. The District’s mayor would become a governor and the D.C. Council a state legislature. For the first time since its founding more than two centuries ago, District residents would also be free to elect voting members to Congress. By all accounts, the measure still has no chance on Capitol Hill. Making a full-fledged state out of the nation’s capital, where 76 percent of voters are registered Democrats, would hand the party two seats in the Senate and one in the House, a prospect that Republicans unapologetically oppose. Even a majority of Senate Democrats have remained cool to the idea, with some in swing states fearing it could be viewed back home as a partisan power grab.

California: Two counties ask to form a separate state | KCRA

Representatives of two counties in far Northern California petitioned state officials Thursday for the right to form a 51st state called Jefferson, formally asking state lawmakers to vote on their proposal. Modoc and Siskiyou counties, which share a border with Oregon and have a combined population of about 53,000, submitted petitions from their county governments to the secretaries of the state Assembly and Senate after filing a petition complaining about a lack of representation to the secretary of state. Organizer Mark Baird told a crowd of about 70 supporters at a rally outside the state Capitol that residents of as many as 10 counties “would be free to create a small state with limited government.” “We don’t need government from a state telling people in a county what to do with their resources and their children’s education. You are better equipped to educate your children than the state or federal government,” Baird said to applause.

Guam: Plebiscite appeal heard: 9th Circuit judges take on political status vote | Pacific Daily News

The Office of the Attorney General yesterday defended Guam’s Decolonization Registry against claims that it discriminates along racial lines. A panel of three judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit yesterday heard arguments in that case and two other cases during a special hearing at the U.S. District Court of Guam in Hagåtña. It was the first time since 2002 that a panel of judges from the appellate court heard arguments here. The court has jurisdiction over federal courts in nine states, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. Among the cases judges heard yesterday was Davis v. Guam, which challenges the constitutionality of the Guam Decolonization Registry.

Editorials: Let’s Settle This Once and for All: D.C. Statehood Is Constitutional. Period. | Joan Shipps/Huffington Post

On April 16th, D.C.-based voting rights activists plan to meet with Congressional offices to encourage support for D.C. statehood. Statehood advocates are calling on Congress to cosponsor, hold hearings on, and vote for the New Columbia Admission Act — legislation that would grant full citizenship rights to the disenfranchised residents of Washington, D.C. In anticipation of Wednesday’s lobby day on the Hill, I feel compelled to go on record about the constitutionality of statehood for the citizens of D.C. That D.C. statehood is unconstitutional is the single most common misconception I hear when discussing D.C. governance with Congressional staff and opponents of D.C. voting rights generally. So let me be absolutely clear on this issue: Statehood for the residents of D.C. is Constitutional. Now here’s why. The D.C. statehood bill does two things, both of which have precedent without any constitutional amendments.

Voting Blogs: Crimea’s referendum: four dangers | openDemocracy

A referendum can be a proper instrument of direct democracy. But if applied improperly, it may devalue the cause it was meant to advance. This is the case with the vote on 16 March 2014 announced by Crimea’s authorities, who – following the takeover of the peninsula by Russia’s armed forces – seek a result that would make Crimea part of the Russian Federation. The most straightforward objection is constitutional. The constitution of Ukraine, of which Crimea is an integral and recognised part, says that Ukraine’s borders can be altered only via an all-Ukrainian referendum. This is why the Crimean initiative (formally proposed and passed by the parliament of Crimea, an autonomous republic within Ukraine) is anti-constitutional. This makes it bad for Ukraine as a whole, but this “separatist” plebiscite could also prove counterproductive for Russians in Crimea, a majority of the population, and for the Russian Federation.

Puerto Rico: U.S.-Based Puerto Ricans Want Equality, Right To Vote, Statehood Back Home | Fox News Latino

Puerto Rican attorney Iara Rodriguez waved campaign signs and cheered at the 2012 Democratic Convention as President Barack Obama was nominated. But the delegate’s euphoria faded when she returned home and, like everyone else living in Puerto Rico, could only watch as the rest of the country voted for its commander in chief. By January, she had moved to Orlando, joining a record number of Puerto Ricans who have left the island in recent years — more than 60,000 in 2012 — the majority landing in Florida. Most are fleeing Puerto Rico’s economic crisis, yet their presence on the mainland is drawing newfound attention to an age-old question back home of whether Puerto Rico should become the 51st state, remain a territory or become independent. A loose coalition of civic leaders in Florida and on the island is seeking to leverage the state’s growing Puerto Rican presence to turn this issue into something the rest of Americans can easily understand: a fight for equality and the right to vote. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens by birth, but because the island is only a territory, its residents can vote for president only if they move to a state.

District of Columbia: Biden calls for DC voting rights during tribute | Businessweek

Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday used a tribute to 19th-century abolitionist Frederick Douglass to renew the call for equal voting rights for people who live in the nation’s capital. During a ceremony unveiling a statue of Douglass in the Capitol, Biden hailed Douglass’ work advocating equal justice, and noted that Douglass supported complete voting rights for residents of the District of Columbia, where Douglass once lived. Although each of the 50 states was allowed two statues of notable citizens in the Capitol, the District of Columbia was not allowed any statue until a measure passed by Congress last year. Residents chose to honor Douglass, whose home near the Anacostia River is a national historic site. Biden said he and President Barack Obama back Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting delegate to Congress, in her effort to bring statehood and full voting rights to the city.

District of Columbia: Norton Introduces Another D.C. Statehood Bill | NBC4

D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton once again introduced legislation to Congress that would make D.C. the country’s 51st state. This isn’t the first time she has introduced such a bill and likely won’t be her last. The New Columbia Admissions Act would give the State of New Columbia two voting senators and a voting member of the House of Representatives. The bill stipulates that the state would not have jurisdiction over federal buildings and territory within its borders.

Puerto Rico: Will Puerto Rico Be America’s 51st State? | NYTimes.com

One of the little-noticed results of the Nov. 6 elections was a plebiscite held in Puerto Rico on the island’s relationship with the United States. The outcome was murky, much like the last century’s worth of political history between Washington and San Juan, and the mainland’s confused or disinterested attitude toward Puerto Rico that abetted it. Ever since the United States invaded Puerto Rico in 1898 and then was handed the island by Spain as part of the settlement for the Spanish-American War, the island’s people — American citizens since the passage of the Jones Act in 1917 — have been continuously put in situations where they are simultaneously auditioning for statehood, agitating for independence, and making the very best of living in limbo.

Editorials: Puerto Rico deserves statehood | Merced Sun-Star

On Election Day, the citizens of Puerto Rico made history. For the first time, they voted for statehood. A resounding 61 percent of voters chose statehood. The other choices were independence (5 percent) or free association (33 percent). Seventy-seven percent of the island’s registered voters participated in this all-important decision. The question is: What will happen now? There are 3.9 million people in Puerto Rico. The legal residents are all U.S. citizens. They carry U.S. passports, and many fight and die in wars wearing uniforms of the U.S. armed forces. But they don’t have a vote in Congress, and they can’t vote for president.

Spain: Catalan elections point to growing polarisation in independence debate | guardian.co.uk

Artur Mas, the Catalan president, was both clear winner and biggest loser in regional elections on Sunday, leaving his march towards statehood up in the air and ushering in years of messy strife with Madrid. “The next independent country within Europe,” as separatist posters across this stateless nation had billed Catalonia, will have to wait, and the region’s 7.5 million inhabitants risk being thrown into a bitter, confrontational internal debate. Mas’s Convergence and Union (CiU) nationalist coalition lost a fifth of its deputies in the 135-seat regional parliament, but its 50 deputies are still twice as many as any other party has. No one else can form a government and Mas can, in theory, choose between three partners to prop up the CiU.

Ukraine: Last Elections in a Divided Country? | New Eastern Europe

Ukraine gained independence in 1991 and political scientist Andrew Wilson has famously called the Ukrainians “an unexpected nation”. In 2012, however, the country is still mired in a post-Soviet swamp of unaccountable and corrupt governance amidst low quality of life and widespread poverty. For many in Western Europe it remains a grey, if not dark, place somewhere on the outskirts of Russia. But what British journalist Lancelot Lawton called “the Ukrainian question” in his 1935 address to the House of Commons Committee is as topical as ever. Each election in Ukraine is deemed crucial for the country’s statehood, and whilst it is usual for the regions of a country to be divided on ideological lines, here such a division is at its widest.

Puerto Rico: Voters Reject Constitutional Amendments | Huffington Post

Voters crowded polling stations across Puerto Rico on Sunday and rejected constitutional amendments that would have reduced the size of the U.S. territory’s legislature and given judges the right to deny bail in certain murder cases. With 99 percent of polling places reporting, officials said 54 percent of the 805,337 votes counted rejected the legislative measure and 46 percent favored it. Fifty-five percent opposed the bail measure and 45 percent supported it. The referendum’s results mean Puerto Rico remains the only place in the Western Hemisphere where everyone is entitled to bail regardless of the alleged crime.

Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico the 51st state? Not likely | Macleans.ca

On Nov. 6, Puerto Rico is holding a referendum on the territory’s tricky political status with the United States. Puerto Rican support for formal statehood has been growing steadily in recent years, with polls showing 41 per cent want the island to become the 51st state. Yet on the mainland, the issue makes for toxic politics. The status of Spanish—which is spoken by 95 per cent of Puerto Ricans—as an official language is unpopular with conservative Republicans. And recession-weary Americans are unlikely to be enthused about any extension of national entitlement programs such as medicare and social security to an island plagued by poverty and joblessness.

District of Columbia: D.C. Voting Rights: Should Local Corruption Be Used To Justify City’s Disenfranchisement? | Huffington Post

It’s a common argument used in the case against greater voting rights or statehood for the District of Columbia: Why should the residents of the nation’s capital be given full and equal voting representation in Congress when its local officials have been shown to be corrupt? The situation involving D.C. Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), who resigned last week before pleading guilty to federal charges that he stole more than $350,000 from the city and filed false tax returns, certainly doesn’t help the D.C. voting rights cause.

The most recent corruption spectacle is particularly ill-timed. A delegation of D.C. officials will soon be heading to New Hampshire to press the cause of the “Last Colony” before state legislators in Concord, who could pass a resolution calling for greater voting rights for the residents of the nation’s capital.

As the Examiner reported this weekend, Councilmember David Catania (I-At-Large) is particularly angry with the current state of affairs in the D.C. government, which, beyond the Thomas drama, involves ongoing federal inquires into allegations of campaign corruption by Mayor Vincent Gray (D) and D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown (D).

Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico edges closer to U.S. voting rights | AHN

Puerto Ricans’ chances of winning a right to vote in U.S. elections are as close now as at any time in American history. A First Circuit Court of Appeals decision last week has set up the conditions needed for the Supreme Court to review the possibility of voting rights for Puerto Rico’s four million residents.

The appeals court deadlocked 3-to-3 on whether to hear a case in which a lower court already denied Puerto Ricans a right to vote. A tied vote means any previous rulings are left to stand. The issue has arisen previously in the federal courts but never when there was a Supreme Court justice of Puerto Rican ancestry and presidential candidates were working so hard to win Hispanic votes.