Congress is debating statehood for Washington, D.C., the federal district with more people than some states but no voting representation in Congress. D.C. residents have long pushed for this under the banner of "no taxation without representation," and faced pushback over issues such as whether it's best for the federal government to control the area around the Capitol and White House rather than be dependent on an independent government for protection, and the probable need to repeal the 23rd Amendment so the president's family in the White House doesn't get to cast three electoral votes on behalf of the rump federal district themselves. But the dominant subtext in 2021 is politics: as a state, D.C. would be presumed to elect two Democratic senators under the current party alignment. [Read more from NPR's Barbara Sprunt]
All of this has happened before: Adding new states for political benefit in the Senate isn't novel in the U.S. In the 1880s, President Benjamin Harrison championed the admission of a record six new states in his one term, all sparsely populated Western states who promptly (as was the plan) elected 12 Republican senators. The burst of new states came when Republicans took unified control of the federal government, following what then seemed like a very long period of more than a decade without any new states admitted because Democrats who controlled the House for most of this time objected to creating new Republican-leaning states. [ Read more from The Atlantic]
Minnesota's House DFL majority put out their own budget plan today, calling for $52.58 billion in spending over two years. It's about $300 million more than Gov. Tim Walz's proposed budget, and $700 million more than the Senate GOP's plan. [Read more from Brian Bakst]
Officials on the southern border are detaining rising numbers of migrants crossing into the United States, but how much of this rise in immigration is unique to 2021 and how much reflects "normal" seasonal patterns? [Read more from the Washington Post]
FiveThirtyEight calculated the House members who most over- and under-performed presidential candidates of their party in their districts — and Minnesota representatives topped both lists . Ex-Rep. Collin Peterson lost in November, but he outperformed Joe Biden in the 7th District by 16 percentage points — more than any other House candidate nationwide. Meanwhile, Rep. Ilhan Omar cruised to reelection in the heavily Democratic 5th District, but she underperformed Biden by 24 points — also the biggest gap in the country. There are lots of caveats and limitations to this metric, of course. But in general, FiveThirtyEight finds most (though not all) of the over-performing candidates in 2020 were relatively moderate incumbents. [ Read more from FiveThirtyEight's Nathaniel Rakich]
Something completely different: The Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland is erupting, so drone pilot Bjorn Steinbekk did the obvious thing: he flew his drone right into the eruption. Amazingly, the drone survived. [Watch]
Listen: "The Man from God Knows Where" is a double-album "folk opera," a connected song-cycle performed by songwriter Tom Russell and a huge list of collaborators, focused on the American immigrant experience. Russell and his partners sing a host of un-romanticized first-person songs from the points of view of multiple generations of his ancestors, who immigrated from Ireland and Scandinavia to the Midwest; other songs touch on the experience of Native Americans and others who suffered from the colonization of the western United States. [ Listen]
