WHAT IT DOES

The 23rd Amendment made it possible for residents of the District of Columbia to vote in presidential elections.

WHY IT WAS ADDED

The District of Columbia was established as the nation’s capital in accordance with Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. But the Constitution did not account for the voting rights of the district’s residents. The 23rd Amendment guaranteed them the right to vote in presidential elections. However, they still do not have voting representation in Congress.

WORD-FOR-WORD

Section 1. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:

A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Alaska becomes a state in 1959.

It took Alaska, despite its impressive size and rich history, about 13 years to become a full-fledged state after World War II, and it needed help from Hawaii.

Recently, voters in Puerto Rico decided to ask Congress to consider its petition for statehood after a November referendum. And last month, there was again talk that the District of Columbia should seek to become a state.

Those two options seem long shots at the moment, because of the complicated process—and politics—of becoming a state.

In the case of Alaska, it started its legal quest for statehood in 1946, when voters approved its referendum. It took years and years of lobbying in Congress to get serious consideration for Alaska’s admittance to the union.

Prior to World War II, Alaska suffered from a bit of an inferiority complex and its own internal politics. Originally called Seward’s Folly after its 1867 purchase from Russia, Alaska came to national attention after its Gold Rush period.

It became a territory in 1912 and started making noise about becoming a state four years later. And its strategic importance became obvious during World War II.

The Democrats during the 1950s favored Alaska as the 49th state, while the Republicans wanted Hawaii admitted by itself. The reason was that each new state gets two U.S. senators and at least one new House member, and the admission of a new state can swing votes in Congress.

The Constitution is vague about the whole process of how a territory becomes a state, delegating the task to Congress.

In Article IV, Section 3, Congress is given the power to decide what states and territories are, but state legislatures would have to approve any act that would combine two existing states or form a new state from parts of other states. (So reuniting Pennsylvania and New Jersey, or Virginia and West Virginia, would be a very difficult task.)

Hawaii both helped and complicated the approval process for Alaska, but a congressional compromise was brokered. Alaska became the 49th state in January 1959, and Hawaii became the 50th state in August 1959.

Puerto Rico’s referendum passed in November and on the surface, it faces bigger challenges than Alaska’s did.

For starters, Puerto Rico has a much bigger population than Alaska or Hawaii did in 1959.

With its population of 3.7 million people, Puerto Rico would be entitled to eight congressional seats, including six seats in the House of Representatives, if it were granted statehood today.

Unless Congress agrees to add the six seats to the House, they would need to be taken from other states.  So an elected member of Congress would need to surrender their seat and agree to redistricting.

Puerto Rico is seen as a Democrat-leaning region, so if the House were to add six new seats, it would also add six new seats in areas controlled by Republicans.

The numbers of seats in the Senate can’t be expanded in the same way, which makes it highly unlikely that a GOP-controlled House would approve of a statehood measure for Puerto Rico.

And Puerto Rico would get eight electoral votes in the next presidential election, which isn’t going to be popular with Republicans.

In the case of the District of Columbia, it already has three electoral votes, thanks to the 23rd Amendment, which was passed in 1961. The District is heavily Democratic, and its admission as a state would tilt the scales more to the Democrats’ liking in Congress.

Outgoing Senator Joe Lieberman introduced a District of Columbia statehood bill last month that would leave a small federal district intact in the Mall area near the White House and the Capitol, and make the rest of the region the state of New Columbia.

In addition to the politics of adding a new state with three Democratic members of Congress, the District of Columbia could face an unusual legal issue.

Since new states are entitled to three electoral votes and the District of Columbia already has three electors under the 23rd Amendment, another amendment may be needed to repeal the 23rd Amendment. Otherwise, the new federal district, consisting of historic buildings, wouldn’t have any full-time residents, but would still have three electoral votes.

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And as of now, the results of its complicated statehood vote on November 6 are certainly up in the air.

Hawaii and Alaska (the 49th state) navigated a lot of political roadblocks to become states in the 1950s, since each state brought a pair of senators and a House member to Congress.

The Constitution is vague about the whole process of how a territory becomes a state, delegating the task to Congress.

In Article IV, Section 3, Congress is given the power to decide what states and territories are, but state legislatures would have to approve any act that would combine two existing states or form a new state from parts of other states. (So reuniting Pennsylvania and New Jersey, or Virginia, and West Virginia would be a very difficult task.)

And because any state automatically gets two U.S. senators and at least one member in the House of Representatives,  statehood becomes even trickier if the balance of power is close in Congress.

Alaska faced a decade-long battle with Congress to become the 49th state that ended in January 1959. Its voters had first passed a statehood referendum in 1946, but they lobbied for another decade with Congress to get their request for statehood approved.

Hawaii helped and also complicated the approval process for Alaska, but a congressional compromise was brokered. After a vote in Hawaii and a separate act approving Hawaiian statehood, it became the 50th state on August 21, 1959.

And now, there is the issue of statehood for Puerto Rico. The island is a U.S. territory and its residents are U.S. citizens, but they don’t have voting congressional representation.

So effectively, Puerto Rico residents can’t vote in the presidential general election. (Articles I and II of the Constitution says that only states can vote, and the 23rd Amendment extends voting rights to the District of Columbia.)

Another statehood referendum is set for Election Day, Tuesday, November 6, and the territorial governor, Luis Fortuno, is supporting statehood as the best option for Puerto Rico.

Other statehood votes failed in Puerto Rico in 1967, 1993, and 1998.

The 2012 vote is different because it has two parts. The first question asks voters if they want to move away from Puerto Rico’s territorial status.

The second part asks voters to choose three options other than remaining a territory:  becoming a U.S. state, an independent country, or a freely associated nation with legal ties to the United States.

To complicate matters, there are three major political parties in Puerto Rico, none of which align with the Democrats and Republicans–they are aligned to statehood, independence, and territory factions.

In a May 2012 poll,  the newspaper El Nuevo Dia found general confusion among potential voters.

About 51 percent didn’t want to move way from Puerto Rico’s territorial status and 45 percent didn’t fully understand all the ballot options. Only 36 percent supported statehood.

But in a twist, polling data on this Sunday’s referendum in Puerto Rico on territorial constitutional changes didn’t match how people voted.

Voters rejected constitutional amendments that limited bail rights and downsized the island’s legislature, despite strong support from Puerto Rico’s two biggest parties.

The vote is seen as a win for a third party that supports full independence for Puerto Rico.

On November 6, voter turnout will be high. Back in 2000, more than 80 percent of registered voters went to the polls. Puerto Rico residents vote at much higher rates than residents of the 50 states.

Back in 1998, voters in Puerto Rico were given four options: statehood, independence, a commonwealth, or none of the above. The majority picked “none of the above” as an option.

This time, a majority will need to pick statehood as an option if Puerto Rico’s quest to become a state will head to Congress.

The November referendum is a nonbinding resolution, but it could also take Puerto Rico down an unexpected path that could have wider political ramifications.

A tough economic climate in Puerto Rico is also a big factor in how the island will vote, in one of the most interesting subplots of Election Day.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

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