So I'm listening to Malcolm Gladwell's new episode of Revisionist History
And it's great it's fine, it's intriguing as fuck... But I keep thinking about making Puerto Rico a state? And how we've already made it a law that we have to make two states in order to bring in one (which is why we got Hawaii by making Alaska for instance) and I remember someone saying we could add Puerto Rico by making DC a state, but TECHNICALLY that can't be the case because a state and can't be made from the innards of another state.
Like this is the whole episode: can you make a state in another state. So Gladwell specifically is talking about gerrymandering in Texas (shocking.) but I can only think of it in this one wierd context because the interpretation of this single constitutional law hangs on the interpretation... Of a semicolon.
Theoretically Puerto Rico can or cannot become a state wholey dependant on the interpretation of an errant punctuation mark.
Like obviously there's more going on than that, and clearly DC is already it's own state in everything but name. But. If someone really wanted. All they'd have to do is bring this one stupid thing all the way up to the Supreme Court, have a ruling made... And have the constitutional back necessary to bring Puerto Rico to statehood.
