I like the Brazilian 'solution' for this: simply add a new star into the constellation and call it a day! ;)
PS: for those who don't know, the flag depicts the sky of Rio de Janeiro on Nov 15th, 1889, day of the proclamation of the Republic.
DC statehood passed the House last year, though nobody expected it to pass a Republican-controlled Senate. I think especially now that we've seen confusion about the chain of command of the DC National Guard, I'd bet that DC gets statehood before Puerto Rico.
(The bill proposes that a small federal district - basically just the contiguous territory of the White House, Congress, Supreme Court, and other federal buildings - be carved out of DC and become the actual capital, and the remainder of DC become a new state.)
If we're separating the federal district, why not just give the rest of it back to Maryland the same way the area on the other side of the Potomac was given back to Virginia?
The Democrats should turn every major city into states of 1 million people each (bigger than the lowest-population rural states) to balance the Senate between urban and rural interests.
I get what you're saying but this conflates two issues: people who live in PR and DC have zero voting representation in Congress. Let's fix that and then separately address the problems of the whole system.
Also keeps the urban and rural types from pissing each other off by passing laws at the state level. It's a win all around but politicians love power so of course no group of them will entertain the idea of carving up states and reducing their power.
I tried to research how this could happen: a city "seceding" from it's state.
I didn't really find anything.
I think it would introduce a fascinating effect: since cities are the financial lifeblood of states, the suburbs on the border would flock to be in that budget, rather than the rapidly diminishing one.
Kansas City is the #1 city I can think of that should secede though. It's population is doubly diluted by two states.
When I coached a programming team, I once had them algorithmically solve this problem for a N-star flag. The constraints were to find all possible combinations where the rows alternated in length by 1. It ended up being a great teaching experience because it was really easy for the students to visualize it and play around with the problem on the whiteboard. It's also a really easy problem to solve without code so the students can easily verify their code and gain confidence.
More likely 52 however with DC and Puerto Rico. Nice article - I like the arrangement. I would assume no one would be interested in a less traditional arrangement much like no one is interested in more colorful currency.
Neither state is likely. They require 60 votes, which is impossible now and will become even more difficult as the disproportionately conservative Senate becomes even less representative of the US over time (due to urbanization).
The constitutionality of DC statehood is also very controversial, so SCOTUS could probably kill it without having to stretch their logic much.
Only simple majority is needed for admission, not 60 [0]. Admitting DC as state would also only require simple majority since constitution does not explicitly mention DC only “federal district.” DC was made a federal district by an act of Congress and a simple majority can reverse that [1]
My idea would be to optimise the spacing of the stars by using circle packing algorithms. Find the largest radius for which you can fit 51 circles in the rectangle, and then center the stars in the circles. That guarantees that the stars are well spaced.
Packing doesn’t necessarily make nice symmetrical things. I don’t have an image for n=51 but this [1] is for 55. Interestingly for square numbers from 49 on, the best packing is not the obvious square lattice either [2]
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We tried other options, as well as a very similar flag as to the US, check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Brazil
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Ba...
(The bill proposes that a small federal district - basically just the contiguous territory of the White House, Congress, Supreme Court, and other federal buildings - be carved out of DC and become the actual capital, and the remainder of DC become a new state.)
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In any case I do believe the filibuster should be eliminated if Republicans obstruct just for the sake of obstruction.
I didn't really find anything.
I think it would introduce a fascinating effect: since cities are the financial lifeblood of states, the suburbs on the border would flock to be in that budget, rather than the rapidly diminishing one.
Kansas City is the #1 city I can think of that should secede though. It's population is doubly diluted by two states.
Eg: https://www.flaginstitute.org/wp/2015/01/flag-week-usa-51-st...
There's some precedent for something like that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennington_flag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnv5iKB2hl4
The constitutionality of DC statehood is also very controversial, so SCOTUS could probably kill it without having to stretch their logic much.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admission_to_the_Union
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statehood_movement_in_the_Di...
[1]: https://www.ime.usp.br/~egbirgin/packing/packing_by_nlp/nume...
[2]: https://www.ime.usp.br/~egbirgin/packing/packing_by_nlp/nume...