On the long, unforgettable evening of Nov. 3, while millions of Americans were nervously glued to their TVs watching CNN, MSNBC, Fox and other news media, their co-citizens in Puerto Rico watched news of their own elections and a yes-or-no referendum on statehood.

For the residents of Washington, D.C., it was yet another election day in which they did not have the right, as prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, Section 2), to elect two senators and a representative to Congress.

Puerto Rico's nonbinding referendum is the sixth consultation of its kind since 1967. With slightly over half of registered voters participating, 52.3% cast ballots for statehood and 47.7% against it. Pro-statehood party leaders, one more time, spun the results as a mandate for seeking admission as a state of the Union. "The people have declared that we no longer want this (commonwealth) status," uttered Gov.-elect Pedro Pierluisi of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party. "We want equality," he continued.

In reality, only around one-quarter of eligible voters supported statehood, hardly a mandate to pursue a till-death-do-us-part commitment with the United States.

The statehood for Washington, D.C., movement, meanwhile, has gained momentum since 2016, when a whopping 86% of the district's voters expressed their desire to become the 51st state of the Union. Such an overwhelming majority was the equivalent of a will-you-marry-me message for Congress.

Democratic senators and congresspeople embraced the proposal and presented statehood-for-Washington legislation in both chambers of Congress. Known for his obstructionist strategies, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., refused to hear it. This summer, all Democratic members of the House, with one exception, voted to pass the Washington, D.C., Admission Act. As has become the norm in these times of extreme party polarization, the Republican opposition unanimously rejected it. Statehood for Washington and Puerto Rico, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell protested, was part of the Democrats' "radical" agenda.

Let's ask Clio, the historians' muse

Discussions of and movements for statehood are not unique to Puerto Rico or Washington. In fact, almost every state, with the exception of the original 13 colonies, has gone through the same general stages: acquisition through expansion, annexation as territories and, finally, admission to the Union by Congress.

An examination of previous cases of statehood, from Vermont in 1791 to Alaska and Hawaii in 1959, offers valuable insights into current efforts in Puerto Rico and Washington, as well as the types of challenges they face and will continue to face.

Debates about statehood have generally included five sets of issues, all of which are playing out today. First, in many instances, specifically between 1800 and 1860, the admission of new states was tied to the issue of balance of power in Congress between Northern free states and Southern slave states. The current state of partisan and sectional polarization echoes that of the antebellum era, resulting in intractable party-line positions on statehood requests.

Matters of race and ethnicity (including language and religion) have traditionally been part of statehood debates. This was true in the vast territories carved out of land annexed during the Mexican-American War, in discussions surrounding the proposed annexation of the predominantly mixed-race Dominican Republic (1868-71) and, more recently, in Alaska and Hawaii. This has been the case all along in Puerto Rico; while not openly discussed, the fact that Washington's population is 47% Black and 11% Hispanic/Latino weighs into a portion of the electorate and its representatives' positions on the subject.

A third factor relates to civil rights, particularly the moral issue of having second-class U.S. citizens denied certain rights, such as the right to representation, despite paying federal taxes. Proponents of statehood for Washington, D.C., loudly echo the rebel colonists' slogan, "Taxation without representation is tyranny."

Fourth and fifth are the intertwined questions of whether new states would be able to contribute to the federal government's treasury or become a burden on it, and how statehood would impact state-level finances and taxation.

To be continued in part II of this column ...

Readers can reach Luis Martinez-Fernandez at LMF_Column@yahoo.com. To find out more about Luis Martinez-Fernandez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.