[Program Note: Still too far under the weather to write today, sorry. But I did see that Democrats have now introduced a bill in Congress which would make Puerto Rico our 51st state, so I thought it was time to dust off the following column, written over 10 years ago. Obviously, the issues being fought over have changed slightly (hurricane recovery rather than the English language), but it still makes some interesting points. Oh, and one final technical note: I can't promise all these old links still work, sorry.]

Originally published June 27, 2007

In the midst of the immigration debate raging in both houses of Congress, an old chestnut has been revived by Republicans: declaring English the national language. The issue polls extremely high with the general public, and Republicans even passed an amendment in the Senate earlier this month by a vote of 64-33, which means a bunch of Democrats (17 of them) voted for it as well. A similar amendment is part of the debate in the House. My question to these lingual purists is: what happens if Puerto Rico becomes the 51st state of the Union?

This is one of those back-burner issues that comes up for a vote now and again (in Puerto Rico), but then "never actually happens" -- so Americans feel free to ignore it as a whole. Or, I should say, "Americans outside of Puerto Rico," since all Puerto Ricans are already American citizens. But every referendum that happens, the percentage voting for statehood gets larger and larger. While it shouldn't be seen as an inevitability, it should indeed be seen as a strong possibility. Say, within the next ten years or so.

So what are we going to do if an American state speaks Spanish as their primary language? It's a question worth thinking about ahead of time.

There's a joke I heard while I was living in Europe, which goes like this:

Q: What do you call a person who speaks three languages?

A: "Trilingual."

Q: What do you call a person who speaks two languages?

A: "Bilingual."

Q: What do you call a person who speaks one language?

A: "An American."

This is obviously due to people from countries (who don't speak English) getting very tired of American tourists who seem to think that: "a-NY-bo-DY... who... speaks... ENG-lish... SLOW-ly... E-nough... and... who... e-NUN-ci-ATES... their... WORDS... well... E-nough..." can be understood by anyone on the planet, no matter what language they speak. You can understand their frustration, if you've ever seen an ignorant American tourist perform this embarrassing pantomime in another country.

But back to the home front. The first question raised is: "How the heck does a territory become a state, anyway?" This is the primary question asked by most Americans, which is due to the fact that we are now in the longest period in American history without admitting a new state. The last states who joined the Union were, of course, Hawaii and Alaska, both in 1959. This happened almost 47 years after the 48th state (Arizona) was admitted in 1912 -- but we have now gone almost 48 years without admitting a new state, breaking the previous record.

The answer is a little vague. Here is the relevant text from the Constitution:

Article IV, Section 3. New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.

In practical terms, this has usually meant that (1) the territory in question has to have a certain minimum number of people living in it, (2) they have to vote on it and have the majority favor statehood, and (3) they have to have a state constitutional convention, to enact a state constitution. And then, of course, Congress gets to vote whether to admit them or not.

Now, there really is only one candidate for becoming the 51st state: Puerto Rico. Ignoring deluded fantasies of splitting either California or Texas into multiple new states, and also ignoring the perennial push to declare the District of Columbia a state; Puerto Rico is really the only viable candidate. All the other U.S. territories (mostly islands in the Pacific) simply don't have enough people living in them.

Well, OK, I can't just ignore Washington, D.C. -- simply because they've got one heck of an amusing way of showing how annoyed they are that they have no (voting) representatives in Congress: their vehicle license plates. Since 2001, their license plates have provocatively displayed the following slogan: "Taxation Without Representation."

What a hoot! Using a Revolutionary War slogan on their official license plates to let all the congressional legislators (who see these plates on a daily basis, it should be noted) know how annoyed they are that they have no congressional representation who can cast a vote.

But I digress.

Puerto Rico has been actively considering statehood for some time now. They have held three referenda on the issue in the last few decades. The numbers and the trends they show are interesting, but not conclusive. The first of these three votes took place in 1967. 60.4% voted for continued "commonwealth" status, and 39.0% voted for statehood. The next took place in 1993. This time the vote was much closer, with 48.6% choosing the status quo of being a commonwealth, but 46.3% chose statehood (the numbers don't add up to 100% because other options, such as becoming an independent country, were also on the ballot). That's a spread of only 2.3% -- a pretty small margin. The most recent of these votes took place in 1998. The vote was a little skewed because the "commonwealth" faction overreached and used vague and unpopular language, so the "status quo" vote went to the newly-added "none of the above" option on the ballot. The outcome was 50.3% for "none of the above" and 46.5% for statehood. While the total percentage for statehood was higher than in 1993 by 0.2%, the "spread" was also higher, at 3.8%. So, statistically speaking, it's not clear what would happen if another vote were held today -- the trend could go either way, in other words.

But you've got to admit, it's still a pretty small margin. Which means that at some time during the next 10 years, another referendum could happen on the island, and if they reach a majority, then they will begin working on ratifying a state constitution and applying to Congress for statehood.

And it's an absolute certainty that their state constitution will not be "English-only" or proclaim English as the state language. Quite the opposite: they may set into their state constitution that the state government will conduct its affairs in two languages: Spanish and English. Or they may even (gasp!) declare Spanish their official state language.

So what is Congress going to do when faced with such a dilemma? What will the president (whomever it happens to be) say about the issue? Republican presidential candidates are already on record, with the exception of John McCain, of supporting English as a national language (it plays to their xenophobic base). But even John McCain, after denouncing such efforts, voted for that English-only amendment to the immigration bill (mentioned earlier). The Arizona Republic article skewers McCain thusly: "Anyone know the Spanish translation for flip-flop?"

What would we all do if a Spanish-speaking Puerto Rico became our 51st state (after we redesign the U.S. flag, that is)? Obviously, at this point, any "English is our national language" nonsense will have to be repealed.

Of course, it would all be a lot easier if Democrats wouldn't vote for such silliness in the first place, but that may be too much to ask during the horse-trading which is currently at the center of the immigration debate. The most intelligent commentary I've heard on the subject comes from a retired Air Force officer, in an op-ed to the tiny Central Shenandoah Valley News Leader. It's worth reading for the common sense he offers.

I say let's not be the butt of the rest of the world's jokes. Let's admit that America can still be America with two official languages. Let's welcome Puerto Rico (if and when it happens) as our 51st state -- with no linguistic jingoism. We will wind up as a stronger country for having done so.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

I've got some bad news, I'm afraid. Monday, I thought I was out of the woods and all better once again. Tuesday, however, I started a relapse and was barely able to get a column that made any sense out. Today, I know what I want to write about, but putting the words on the page has proven impossible. I wake up, am coherent for about 15-30 minutes, and then get so exhausted that I have to go back to sleep again. This has cycled all throughout the day, and it seems to be getting worse. So my apologies once again, but there will be no new column today. While I thought I was done with the flu, apparently it is not done with me yet. I'm taking this day by day, and have no idea what tomorrow will bring, folks, so I'm going to have to ask you for some additional patience while I fight to get well once again.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Even though most of the political media refused to acknowledge it until after the fact, one big political issue emerged during the 2018 midterms that turned out to be a real winner for Democrats: protecting people's healthcare. This was really nothing more than a self-inflicted wound by the Republicans, since the voter backlash had been growing ever since the GOP tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with absolutely nothing. Democrats merely pointed this out in their campaigns, and the voters backed them overwhelmingly on the issue. And now it seems that Donald Trump is doubling down on this losing strategy in preparation for the 2020 campaign. Democrats, meanwhile, are moving forward on healthcare in a positive and constructive way, which paints the starkest of differences between the two parties' political attitudes, right at the start of the campaign season.

The Trump Justice Department just announced that it was siding with the Republican states who are challenging the Affordable Care Act in court. Their new position is that Obamacare is unconstitutional through and through, and that the entire law should be struck down in its entirety. While the issue of protecting people with pre-existing conditions was the biggest political fight during the midterms, if the Trump administration now has its way in the courts, the public will stand to lose a lot more than just the pre-existing conditions protections that Obamacare instituted. They'll lose all the protections Obamacare created, in one fell swoop.

Continue Reading »

Robert Mueller has now finished his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump, and he has handed in his final report on both to Attorney General William Barr. While others are commenting extensively on Barr's summary letter, which was made public over the weekend, instead I would like to draw attention one final time to the most extraordinary thing about the entire Mueller investigation. Because during the entire two-year scope of his investigation as special counsel, Mueller and Mueller's team set (and achieved) an absolute gold standard that, as far as I am aware, has never before been managed in the hotbed of Washington politics: Mueller didn't leak. At all. Ever. Not even once.

Continue Reading »

As I wrote about yesterday, the Democratic 2020 presidential field is getting bigger all the time. With so many viable candidates running, it's getting tougher and tougher for each one of them to stand out in any appreciable way. Most of the attention in the media so far has focused on rather superficial traits about the candidates (this is nothing new, I should mention), but that doesn't mean that substantive policy proposals aren't being put forward. So today I'd like to zero in one on particular candidate who seems to be proposing some of the boldest ideas in the field (at least for now). Because whatever else you may think of her, Elizabeth Warren has certainly staked out a few cutting-edge positions.

[I should mention before I begin that I am in no way offering an early endorsement of Warren over any other candidate in the mix, rather you should see this as the first of hopefully many articles which take a deeper dive into the policy prescriptions of the Democratic candidates in the race. Because while I do enjoy a good horserace column (again, see yesterday's offering), there's far too much of that sort of thing around and not nearly enough examination of what each particular candidate is offering to the voters. So please see this as merely the first in a series of such columns, and not my own personal endorsement of any one candidate at this early stage in the race.]

Continue Reading »

It's time once again to cast our eyes over the ever-expanding Democratic 2020 presidential field, and as has been the case so far, we've got new commitments from a few more notable names to add into the mix. Oh, and one meta-addition, as the Democratic National Committee has now announced that Milwaukee, Wisconsin will be where the 2020 convention will be held -- which means that no matter who is nominated, we won't be able to say "if they'd only gone to Wisconsin..." this time around. So there's that, at least.

Of course, the biggest news (fittingly) came from Texas, as Beto O'Rourke formally jumped into the race, surprising absolutely no one. More on him in a moment, but his launch has so far been one of the biggest three in the field (the other two who made serious splashes so far were Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris). But again, we'll get to Beto in a bit.

Continue Reading »

President Donald Trump just got humiliated three times in the same week. By his own party. Could this be a trend? One would certainly like to think so, but that may be premature (or overly optimistic).

Of course, it's debatable whether Trump can even be humiliated, because it's tough to humiliate someone who does not know the meaning of the word humility. You can call Trump many things (and we often do), but "humble" certainly isn't one of them.

But whether he realizes it or not, Trump was badly humiliated three times this week by Republicans in Congress. The first was a 54-46 vote in the Senate (with seven Republicans voting with the Democrats) to end America's involvement in Saudi Arabia's devastating war in Yemen. The second came the next day, when the Senate voted 59-41 (with an even dozen Republicans crossing the aisle to specifically rebuke Trump) to un-declare Trump's southern border "national emergency." This is the same bill that 13 Republicans voted to support in the House, a while back. But the third humiliation Trump suffered was optically the worst for him, as the House unanimously voted 420-0 to urge the attorney general to release Robert Mueller's report publicly after it gets delivered. So much for Trump's "witch hunt" theory... it's hard to call something a witch hunt when every member of your party wants to see what it uncovers, after all.

The common thread through all of these votes was that Trump has overreached (or will overreach), and must be constrained by Congress. Also, the humiliation for Trump -- that was a big component as well, of course.

Continue Reading »

It has been a rather astonishing 24 hours in Congress. Last night, the Senate passed a bill which would force President Donald Trump to end American involvement in the war Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen, by a healthy margin of 54-46. Today, they followed this rebuke by passing the House bill to rescind Trump's "national emergency" declaration of a non-emergency on the southern border by an even-more-astonishing margin of 59-41. The House, not to be outdone, then unanimously passed (420-0) a resolution demanding that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's eventual report to the attorney general be made public. That's a whole lot of presidential rebuke for one single day, you've got to admit. And a whole lot of Republicans voting against a president of their own party.

Continue Reading »

If I had been in a more pedantic mood, that headline would have more-properly read: "And Then There Were Fifty-Two," but that doesn't really have the same ring to it. Whichever math you prefer, there is now a solid majority in the Senate to pass the House's measure rescinding President Trump's "national emergency" declaration at the southern border. A fifth Republican senator, Mike Lee, just announced he'll be voting for the measure, which means there are already 52 votes for it in advance of tomorrow's floor vote. This should assure its passage, and will likely lead to the first presidential veto of Trump's tenure in office.

Continue Reading »

I try to not write about the same (or similar) subjects two days running as a general rule, but every so often I must break this rule to address late-breaking developments which happen after the first article is put to bed and published. This is one of those times, because after writing yesterday about the House Democrats' impressive unity (no matter what the pundits tell you), another kerfluffle erupted when the Washington Post released an interview with Speaker Nancy Pelosi which it had conducted last week. And the inside-the-Beltway crowd immediately went hog wild, because one of their very own pundits had successfully won the game entitled: "Get a Democrat to use the word 'impeachment'."

Sigh. So here we are again, as I feel the need to absolutely and positively debunk all the hoopla over the non-story of Nancy Pelosi saying she isn't currently a fan of impeaching the president. In fact, I think she's gotten so tired of getting the question that she's now just outright trolling the media on their own obsession over the issue.

Continue Reading »