superrific
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This raises a question for me. Entirely hypothetical, but I was thinking about it when I was talking about gifting LA, MS and AL to another country.
Suppose we were to do that. The residents would still be citizens. Of which state would they be citizens? Like, could they not vote in any election? Could they vote in federal elections, but who would they elect? I have a sense that the courts might treat the state as like a government in exile -- the idea being that the state is more than land. You can get rid of the land, but the state would live on. Of course, that raises the question where does it live? How many residents would it have? How many EVs or Congressional Reps?
I mean, this is hypothetical but not impossible, and since low-prob events (or things we thought were low-prob some time ago, like SCOTUS deciding huge questions of law without *any* meaningful explanation) seem to be in vogue, it might not be a purely idle question. We bought land, and surely we could sell it. It's a foreign policy question, isn't it? An executive decision? If we fought a war, lost and had to surrender territory, would the surrendered regions still be states?
Fortunately most blue states are economically indispensable to the union, so they are not in danger of being offloaded. I suppose maybe Vermont. But I don't think Canada or any other country would take it because it would strengthen the GOP who is a menace to them.
