51!
Damn. The population of Washington DC exceeds both the states of Wyoming and Vermont: 705,000 people! Who knew?
And that's a lot of disenfranchised voters.
Hmm... what's the population of Puerto Rico...? (Quickly googles..) 3.1 MILLION people without a voice in the operation of their government. Hmmm...
52?
Yeah if I were the Dems I would state the shit out of
- DC
- Puerto Rico & the US VI
- add Guam, American Samoa and the North Mariana Islands to Hawaii
And then I would gut the shit out of the Reappointment Act
Let's take Wy-fucking-Oming because Fuck Tom Cotton. They've got one representative, Liz Fucking Cheney, for 571,000 people. Washington, for example, has ten for 7.6 million people. We'll let Wy-fucking-Oming keep Liz Cheney but the minute we blow a hole in the reapportionment act, Washington suddenly gains three more representatives and guess what? they're all blue based on districting. California? goes from 53 to seventy and they're all blue too.
Throw it at the fucking Taliban "Originalists" on the Supreme Court and the United States has 6,000 members of the House of Representatives. At that point I don't even give that much of a shit if one of them happens to be Devin Nunes.
I would love to see a constitutional challenge to the Reapportionment Act. It's time for fucking scorched earth.
- During House floor debate on the bill, Republican Rep. Gregory Murphy of North Carolina argued for Congress to cede the land back to Maryland instead of making DC its own state.
"The move is simply unnecessary when ceding DC back to Maryland is a viable, cost-effective and common sense option," Murphy said.
It's not often I agree with Republicans, but that does sound like a more logical and practical solution.
Anyway, what happens now? Can the Senate choose to completely ignore the bill? Can the Democrats delay it until January, when it might have a better chance to pass in the Senate?
Yes, this is a symbolic and political vote with a GOP Senate. However, the chance that the Dems win congressional majorities and that Biden wins the Presidency isn't small.
This vote is a signal to voters for what Dems would like to do if they win in November.