The United States possesses four territories plus the District of Columbia. The territories are the American Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and Puerto Rice. The United States has held the territories for over 100 years. And in the case of Guam, this territory cannot exist on its own.

The District of Columbia is a special case since it has always existed entirely on American soil. The idea of it, as proposed by George Washington, was to provide a neutral place for our nation’s Capitol. It was established in 1790 but the Capitol Building itself was not finished until 1800, along with other supporting buildings. The city’s population in 1800 was a little over 14,000 people. Today the city’s population is about 690,000 people. Contrast that with Wyoming’s population of 578,000, Vermont with 626,000 and North Dakota with 760,000. Washington has a larger population than 2 states and is close the a third. Why are the people of Washington kept from having a voting representative and two senators?

It was not until 1971 that Congress allowed the district to have a non-voting representative to Congress. From its earliest days, Congress has been the presiding power over Washington DC. The city of Washington has an elected mayor who with her city council passes ordinances. From time-to-time, Congress acts to overturn certain of these ordinances as it sees fit and the city has no right to redress. Clearly a violation of our Constitution.

The Spanish-American war allowed the United States to gain province over the aforementioned territories. The population of American Samoa is 55,300, of Puerto Rico 3.2 million, of Guam 167,000, and of the American Virgin Islands 106,000 people. Together they represent 3.5 million people with no say in their administration. When Arizona was admitted to the union in 1912 it had about 200,000, and when Wyoming was admitted it had barely 56,000. To argue size is made irrelevent by these numbers. One of the most recently admitted states, Alaska had only about 200,000 people.

These four territories plus D.C. have a legitimate complaint about not being properly represented in Congress. Each has one non-voting member of the House of Representatives. They get to be heard but are not allowed to vote on laws which deeply affect their constituents. The present U.S. Government is doing exactly what the British Parliment did prior to the Revolution. And the colonists vocally decried that lack of representation to Partliment. In a final try to gain that representations, Benjamin Franklin eloquently laid forth his case for the representation only to be mocked and laughed at. This was one of the final acts which lead to the revolution.

The people of Washington DC and Puerto Rico have been quite vocal in the same way. But their complaints have long gallen on deaf ears. It is wrong and it must be corrected. Republicans have long voted against statehood only because they fear these two areas would only send Democrats to Congress. They have shown no concern for the people who live there. It is time for Congress to act and for Congressional Republican to stop being obstructionists.