David Leonhardt has a provocative column in the New York Times, arguing a) that the structure of the Senate, combined with the geographic distribution of Americans of various races, heightens the political power of whites over nonwhites and b) that admitting the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states would “make a meaningful dent” in this problem.


Accepting the basic logic of the column for argument’s sake, though, I see two problems. First, the remedy wouldn’t make a dent at all for Asian Americans, who by Leonhardt’s calculation have less voting power than blacks do. (It might even make that problem worse.) Second, Leonhardt is lumping together different groups as Hispanics. If Mexican Americans or Cuban Americans have too little political power, how does strengthening Puerto Ricans’ power do anything to boost it? Might it not even shrink it further?