Puerto Virgo Should Become A State

Yeah, sorry about the forfeit. I misjudged the how much time I had. Anyways. .. Further, the Virgin Islands racial majority of blacks[2] would instantly become a small racial minority, trumped by the 99% Hispanic majority in Puerto Rico. [Race should have nothing to do with politics in the first place. Many states have racial minorities and they still get positions in the government. This would result in an unfortunate thing, because, for whatever the Virgin Islands stand to gain by becoming a state, they would lose representation in both Congress and their own affairs. Currently the Virgin Islands are a governing anarchic territory overseen by the US. Not only would they receive the right to a organized state government government, but they would also be able to participate in American politics. The argument " They should not receive representation in the first place, because they wont be represented anyways", is a bad one. Should they not still be offered the same chance to vote and participate in politics. I believe they have much more to gain from joining a already working system, such as Puerto Rico. My second argument rests on the will of the people - in every referendum ever made on the subject, a majority of Puerto Rican voters have never supported statehoodNow this is false. The last refendrums Puerto Rico has voted in were in favor of statehood. In the 2012 refendrum, 61% of Puerto Ricans favored statehood opposed to a commonwealth. Only 5-6% voted for independence. The Puerto Rican representative is has already drafted a bill, which President Obama has been pushing for. My opponent has clearly not stated the right facts for the 2012 refendrum and is contradicting his opening statement. " I am a staunch supported of Puerto Rican Statehood. .. ". . https://www.govtrack.us...http://www.hr2000pr.com...http://www.cnn.com...Assuming the size of the Puerto Rico Legislative Assembly remains the same size (51 House seats and 27 Senate seats), the Virgin Islands would only have about 1 seat (at most) in both houses,[3] because under current math each Senate district represents approximately 137,000 Puerto Ricans and each House district represents roughly 73,000 Puerto Ricans. What my opponent does not understand, is that the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico would be a part of the same entity. They would not be two separate states. Unless the Virgin islands join another state like Puerto Rico, they will likely never receive statehood. In order to receive the benefits, they must join a larger state. This would be beneficial as tons of benefits exist to being a state rather then a territory. My third argument rests on the issue of precedent - when states are admitted, both parties traditionally support admitting two states to avoid changing the political system. Because Puerto Rico would almost certainly support Democrats by some margin, and 3 out of the 5 states that would lose seats to Puerto Rico come from Republican-leaning states,[4] there would need to be an admittance of a Republican-leaning state to balance things out. Prior to this debate, I had my opponent PM me before I let him accept. He assured me political parties would not be a part of his argument. Regardless, we should not deny 3,800,000 citizens representation due to the fact of political imbalance. There opinion should matter, and there is no reason they should be denied because of political imbalance. If the majority becomes democrat, then so be it. It is the will of the people. Currently, both democrats and Republican platforms support Puerto Rican citizenship anyways. . http://www.usnews.com... . http://assets.dstatic.org... Citizenship Without Representation----------------------------------------America was founded on the phrase " no taxation without representation". Currently, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have been citizens of the United States since the 30's. They are being taxed like the average citizen, but are not being represented. This is against one of our founding values, and should be considered. . http://www.vinow.com... They are led by a group of people they had not elected. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Currently, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are run by the president and congress. Congress has imposed many laws that Puerto Rico and VI had no say in. Now this is a form of colonialism. Should we not allow Puerto Rico and the Vi to have a say in the government. It has already been shown they want to be neither independent or a commonwealth. We should abide by what they want. Congress has approved a 2.5 million budget for a vote on Puerto Rican independence. With any luck, it will pass. . http://beta.congress.gov...