Yeah DJ is right. Puerto Rico is one thing, millions of people there, and while I’m skeptical at the moment (Dems pushing for it make clear they are confident of winning there if it was a state.) there is the possibly of competitive elections, that’s a discussion.
But tiny heavily RAT USVI? That’s a hard no. Attaching it to FLORIDA, which we’ve been winning by a hair? That’s BONKERS. Would you attach a tumor to the lungs of one of your loved ones?
Putting DC in Maryland would kill any small chance MD GOP would win anything, Governor Hogan’s relative landslide may have well been a loss. Hard pass. Is that “fair” to DC voters? No, it’s not. I’m surprised the rats haven’t been able to make more hay out of that issue of “disenfranchised Black voters”. But I don’t care, you don’t hand your enemy more ammunition. DC peeps are SOL, they shouldn’t have electoral votes as far as I’m concerned. Do you think if DC was nothing but working class Whites that the democrats would ever allow it to either be a state or become part of Maryland? LOL.
The only solution for DC I could support is a new state from DC plus adjacent (rat) areas in MD and VA, which would make MD a swing state and return VA to the GOP. Obviously I don’t expect this to happen but this is the only way to let DCers vote for Congress without screwing ourselves.
There have been proposals for an amendment to give DC one seat in the House but no Senate. I could live with that if it happened but still couldn’t support adding a permanent democrat seat.
Guam and NMI (and poor American Samoa, never given citizenship for some reason) might actually improve our chances if they were added to Hawaii.
In my proposal, DC would vote in federal elections as part of Maryland, but not in state elections. DC would elect its own municipal government. The same principle could apply to each of the incorporated territories.
I would prefer the pairings be mutually agreed-to and then ratified by Congress. While Maryland is the obvious partner for DC, there is no obvious partner for the off-shore incorporated territories. I merely suggested, e.g., Guam with Hawaii for concreteness.
I realize each party will look at the immediate tactical advantages. The Democrats would probably figure they’d net one voting Congressman and lose two electoral votes with the set up for DC; and, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Marianas Islands are simply too small to have any affect.
But, in my view, parties in the U.S. system are continually adjusting so as to be competitive. In the long run, there’s no telling what the effect would be, other than enabling every American to vote in federal elections.
Since you brought up American Samoa, perhaps a proposal like this would nudge them and us to consider incorporating the territory into the U.S.