It could soon have 51 members in the United States

Contrary to popular belief that the United States is made up of 52 member states, the country actually only has 50 alliances. The misunderstanding is based on the fact that Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. (rarely referred to as the US Virgin Islands) are considered by many separate member states, even though they have strong autonomy. That is, those who live there, despite American citizens, cannot choose who the president is.

Washington and the mainly Federated District of Columbia are the only non-states eligible to vote in the presidential election with the 1961 ratification of the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution. However, it has not been represented on the Capitol since then, causing decades-long conflict between residents of the area and the federal government. This is such a deep wound to the locals that since May 2000, the license plates issued here have been bearing the slogan “Taxes Without Representation” – proverb Border stone Summarized in the article.

Early in 2020, that originated Get federal state status The capital and its environs, but since the region tends to be attracted to the Democratic Party, there was no chance that this would happen under the previous Republican leadership. However, with the party winning a near-Senate majority alongside Joe Biden in January of this year, State Proposition 51 was back into effect. I would elevate him to a new rank like “Washington State, Douglas Commonwealth,” but I would remove the White House, the National Complex, the Capitol and other important administrative institutions that would be the Federal Center in the future. The American reveals that officially there is not a single address in these areas, and therefore the center is not inhabited Forbes Of the article.

The White House announced Tuesday that the Biden administration “strongly supports” the bill, arguing that “unrepresented taxes and denial of self-government violate the democratic values ​​upon which our nation is founded.”

However, the question remains as to whether the proposal will pass: In the Senate, the Washington state bill has 44 Democrats, with the exception of a small number of moderate MPs, while the House version has 216 Democrats, so even Deputy President Kamala Harris will not have it. majority.

Adoption of the case is also important to the Democratic Party because the current election law does not give much power to sparsely populated states, which usually elect Republicans. Democrats keep the Senate tight, thanks to the fact that in states like West Virginia and Montana, they have managed to keep their seats.

Nancy Mays, a Republican member from South Carolina, told the news: “The capital will not fit even one congressional district, and now they are here, wanting power and authority like an entire country in the United States. On the other hand, his argument is flawed in NW and Vermont Less densely populated than DC and DC, it has a population of 692,000, which is slightly less than the Congressional district average of 710,000.