Opinion: The Senate’s white-state bonus

The last two weeks of polling have been good for the Republicans. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Monday, October 15, 2018 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist Here, in descending order, are the 10 whitest states in the country, based on share of the population: Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Montana, Iowa, Kentucky, North Dakota, Wyoming and South Dakota. You may notice that those states have something else in common, too. They’re small. And small states dominate the United States Senate, by design. Because the Senate gives special treatment to the residents of small states — in the form of extra political power — and because small states are overwhelmingly white, the Senate also effectively gives special treatment to white Americans. Yes, it’s partly historical accident. But the consequences are huge. The structure of our federal government awards more political representation to one race than to other races. This inequity is [the subject of my column today](. By now, you probably know that I’m a fan of charts, and this column includes a big chart that I think tells the story especially clearly. (Thanks to my colleague Sahil Chinoy, who edited the charts and the column.) As I argue, the Senate’s current white preferences are a strong argument for making Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., the 51st and 52nd states. They’re both home to American citizens who now have no voting power in Congress. Both are also mostly non-white. Granting them statehood wouldn’t eliminate the Senate’s racial imbalance, but it would reduce it. For more on Puerto Rico and Washington in particular: The Washington Monthly has run several articles making the case for statehood for both places, including [one by Ben Paviour]( and a broader piece — on democratic reform — [by Paul Glastris](. “Since 1898, the United States has ruled the island as a colonial power,” [Rebecca Pilar Buckwalter-Poza has written in Washington Monthly](. “Puerto Ricans — all 3.3 million of them — are nominally American citizens, but have no representation in the federal government nor full constitutional protections.” “The disastrous response by the federal government to the hurricane in Puerto Rico is really example No. 1,”[ Glastris told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball](. “If Puerto Rico were a state and had two senators, I can guarantee the federal government would not have been able to get away with the slow-walking of the response, and thousands of people might not have died.” “Hurricane survivors who live on the island agree that the federal government would have responded differently to the disaster if Puerto Rico were a US state,” [Alexia Fernández Campbell of Vox]( writes, citing survey data. And although some Puerto Ricans continue to oppose statehood, “all pre-Maria indications were that a majority of Puerto Ricans favored statehood,” as Rebecca Pilar Buckwalter-Poza has also written. Multiple former Republican presidents, [like Ronald Reagan]( also favored statehood for Puerto Rico if the island’s residents favored it. President Trump, however, is “[an absolute no.”]( [Ryan Struyk of CNN]( has some details on what statehood for Puerto Rico would mean in the House: Five seats currently held by other states would need to be reassigned to Puerto Rico, because the House, unlike the Senate, doesn’t grow when a new state joins. [The radio station WAMU]( explains how Washington could become a state despite the constitutional complications: A small part of the city would need to remain a “federal district” and not included in the new state. Jamal Khashoggi. “If we have already lost Jamal, then condemnation is not enough,” [Hatice Cengiz]( the fiancée of the apparently murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, writes in The Times. “The people who took him from us, irrespective of their political positions, must be held accountable and punished to the full extent of the law.” [Fred Hiatt]( who published Khashoggi’s columns at The Washington Post, argues that the killing should cause Americans to question its alliance with Saudi Arabia. “Even if we still needed Saudi Arabia’s oil, which we do not; even if Saudi Arabia was a strong and principled ally in the region, which it is not; even if it helped push the Palestinians toward peace, or kept its promises in Yemen, or bought the weapons that Trump thinks it is going to buy…. No matter what Saudi Arabia offered, could its supposed friendship be worth shrugging off the ensnaring and killing of a critic whose only offense was to tell the truth?” To follow the investigation, I recommend following [Karen Attiah]( who edited Khashoggi at The Post, on Twitter. The full Opinion report from The Times follows. [The Senate: Affirmative Action for White People]( [The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, spoke at a press conference following a Republican luncheon at the Capitol last month.]( The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, spoke at a press conference following a Republican luncheon at the Capitol last month. Shawn Thew/EPA, via Shutterstock By DAVID LEONHARDT And why it’s time to make Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., the 51st and 52nd states. Op-Ed Columnist [Trump’s Callous Use of Kanye]( By CHARLES M. BLOW Trump never cared about criminal justice reform. [What the Left Misses About Nationalism]( By JOHN B. 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