Effect of DC Statehood on Black Under Representation in the Senate

Michael Ettlinger and Jordan Hensley

In an earlier piece we showed the impact of the undemocratic nature of the U.S. Senate on the representation of members of different groups. Black, Hispanic and Asian residents are notably under-represented. A reader asked how adding senators from Washington DC and Puerto Rico would affect that underrepresentation. We did an analysis of the combined effect of both DC and Puerto Rico becoming states. With the vote in the House of Representatives on DC statehood we’ve updated the analysis and broken out DC and Puerto Rico separately. In the table below a negative number indicates that a member of the group is represented in the Senate by that percent less than if all were represented equally. A positive number means they are represented more than would be equal. The original article has a fuller explanation of the calculation.

The most pronounced effect of making DC a state on representation in the U.S. Senate is that Black underrepresentation would be reduced from 16% to 10%.