Meeting in former U.S. and Russian imperial territorial possession, D.C. “home rule” regime crisis, spark Puerto Rico statehood debate
By Howard Hills
Even as the Alaska summit loomed large, the President did not hesitate to launch a robust federal intervention to restore rule of law on the streets of Washington. That triggered predictable howls about Trump’s intrusion on D.C.’s “home rule.” Even many Trump critics admitted Congress and the local D.C. political regime have failed to sustain basic civic order and public safety.
Instead of taking responsibility as the chief executive administering a dystopian federal reservation, the beleaguered Mayor of Washington D.C. claimed the remedy for our capital city’s woes is admission as a state of the union.
No sooner had that diversionary gambit fallen flat than grizzled Democratic Party sage James Carville called for Democrats to move to the center, win some elections, and support statehood for both D.C. and Puerto Rico to restore Democrat hegemony in Congress. The wild card in playing that hand would be speculation as to which party would prevail in Greenland if it became a U.S. territory or state.
Coming back down to earth, Carville’s assumption that the 127-year-old U.S. territory of Puerto Rico would be as surely a blue state as D.C. is disproven by the fact that the current Governor, Senate President, and House Speaker in the Puerto Rico legislature are Republicans. Several Republican Governors and a majority of mayors in the GOP have shared power with pro-statehood Democrat Party affiliates in the local territorial government. No U.S. presidents have been stronger supporters of statehood for Puerto Rico than Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush (41).
But the historical ironies of this moment run much deeper:
- The modern Russian emperor returned to what was once the easternmost imperial province, not to mention a foothold in North America reaching all the way to Northern California, sold for imperial spending cash in what history would best remember as the Czar’s Folly.
- It was the federal bureaucracy in the territory of Alaska that carried out the Taft administration’s corrupt management of mineral and fishing industries in that distant possession, at the behest of Wall Street syndicates, ending the imperial experiments under Presidents McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and Taft, and ushered in the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, a stout critic of European colonialism.
- If Puerto Rico is not admitted as a state, even though it is more integrated into the political and economic life of the nation than most of the 32 territories that became states, it will be the first American territory in which the majority of U.S. citizens voted for statehood only to be denied eventual admission to the union. That would be historically and constitutionally unprecedented.
- The District of Columbia is 1/20th the size of Puerto Rico, which is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware, equivalent in size to Connecticut, with a U.S. citizen population larger than 18 states.
- Puerto Rico is an Article IV territory governed by Congress under the “Territorial Clause” power, just like 32 Article IV territories admitted to the union since 1796. In contrast, Washington D.C. is an Article I “Seat of Government Clause” federal reservation where the Congressional and Electoral College “Representation Clauses” do not apply. When the half of D.C. ceded to the federal government by Virginia decided it wanted to vote in Congress and the Electoral College, and not be governed by federal bureaucrats, the City of Alexandria was ceded back to Virginia. Admitting the Maryland half of D.C. as a state would be historically and constitutionally unprecedented.
Those are just some of the ironies that weave a web of invisible threads tying the Alaska summit, D.C. showdown, and Puerto Rico statehood together in this moment of political drama.
Howard Hills was senior advisor and lead counsel in territorial law affairs for the Carter, Reagan, Bush (41), Trump, and Biden administrations.
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