Late last week, former Vice President and Presidential candidate Kamala Harris highlighted Puerto Rico statehood as an idea worth considering when speaking at a political event with the organization Win with Black Women. “We talk about the idea of Supreme Court reform, which includes expanding the Supreme Court. We invite a conversation about multi-members districts,” she said. “Let’s talk about statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C.”
Louisiana v. Callais
The event was what Win with Black Women called “an emergency meeting” in response to Louisiana v. Callais, a Supreme Court decision allowing redistricting in Louisiana. Beginning with a change in voting districts in Texas with the stated purpose of getting more Republicans into office, followed by a tit for tat redistricting in California, six more states have redrawn voting districts in blatant efforts to give an advantage to one party or the other. Normally, redistricting is done once a decade, in response to changes in population numbers. Changing district lines (or gerrymandering) for political reasons is illegal in some states but has been done openly in others.
In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court ruled against the practice of drawing voting districts in such a way as to keep ethnic communities together. Specifically, the redistricting diluted the power of black voters to join their neighborhoods to vote for candidates they believed would represent them. This practice is sometimes called “racial gerrymandering.”
Kamala Harris said of the decision, “They are back dooring racism behind politics to get to this decision and to justify what is happening in particular right now in all the southern states, and this is obviously a time for us to fight.”
Advice for Democrats
Harris suggested a “no bad ideas brainstorm” to identify structural changes that will encourage democracy in general and the Democratic Party in particular. She suggested that Democrats should be more aggressive in political action. “We are never going to violate the law or do anything unethical or immoral,” she said, “but we need to be ruthless, too.”
It was during this discussion that Harris mentioned statehood for Puerto Rico.
Harris was the Democratic candidate for president in 2024 and has been mentioned as a possible candidate in 2028.
Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore
