Arizona Sen. Martha McSally (R) claimed Tuesday that Senate Democrats would move to pass statehood bills for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico should they retake control of the chamber in November.
In an interview with NBC News, the Republican senator speculated that Democrats would seek to make the nation’s capital and Puerto Rico full U.S. states with Senate and House representation, a move she said would permanently prevent Republican control of the Senate.
“If they win the White House, the Senate, the House, they’re already saying they’re going to ram through the most radical agenda in American history,” McSally said.
“There’s so much at stake here. They’re going to make D.C. and Puerto Rico a state and get four new Democrat Senators. We’d never get the Senate back again. And look, this is just the implications of this seat, the implications of this vote,” the senator added.
McSally’s comments referred to the D.C. statehood bill passed by the House earlier this year that’s now languishing in the Senate under the threat of a White House veto; however, there are no efforts currently among House or Senate Democrats to extend the same level of representation to Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico is set to vote on statehood in a referendum in November. A widely boycotted vote in 2017 showed overwhelming preference for statehood, though many who opposed the move declined to participate in the vote.
McSally, who was appointed to succeed former Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) in January 2019, is set to face former astronaut Mark Kelly (D) in an election determining who will hold the seat for the remainder of Kyl’s term in November.
