If the Dems controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, do you think they would push for statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico? Would they expand the size of the House?
— Asked March 28, 2023, in our election live chat
A majority of Democratic lawmakers support statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico, but there’s still a number of roadblocks — from Senate division to questions over how electoral college votes could be allocated. (And statehood for Puerto Rico has been debated for years, especially among residents on the island.) Democrats have been in this scenario before, where they had control of the House, Senate and White House — so what happened?
Answered by Brianna Tucker
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Most recently in 2021, a bill for D.C. statehood did pass in the House, but it failed to get enough support in the 50-50 Senate, as my colleagues Teddy Amenabar and Meagan Flynn reported. Because of the Senate filibuster, which requires 60 votes rather than 51 for legislation to pass, a simple majority of Democrats in the Senate isn’t enough to pass statehood.
Therein, a bill for D.C. statehood would need the support of at least 10 Senate Republicans as well, and Republicans were pretty vocal about their opposition — every House Democrat who cast a ballot voted for the bill, every House Republican voted against it, and the Senate has never voted on D.C. statehood.