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Is this possible? Texas v. White says that states cannot unilaterally secede, but not that they cannot be kicked out. The Constitution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admission_to_the_Union#Text) says that states cannot be admitted or formed from the territories of one or more states without Congress and the state legislatures agreeing, but it does not say anything about revoking statehood. Could Congress vote to either expel states from the country or demote them back into territories?

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Could Congress vote to either expel states from the country or demote them back into territories?

With the state's consent, yes. Article 5 of the constitution provides

that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

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    If it's no longer a state then it is not a state being deprived of its equal suffrage.
    – Alex
    Jun 26, 2022 at 20:35
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    If there’s a law that says that employers have to provide employees with paid sick leave, does that mean that you cannot ever fire employees?
    – Alex
    Jun 26, 2022 at 20:43
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    @Alex of course not, but the analogy is not on point. Paid leave is not a protection of employee status; it is a benefit. A better analogy is that of US citizenship. A US citizen cannot be deprived of US citizenship involuntarily, even though doing so would mean that the person, no longer being US citizen, no longer enjoyed that protection. Or, in the employment analogy, your argument would be like an employer firing someone for protected conduct such as performing jury duty and then arguing that the fired person enjoys no protection against dismissal because the person is not an employee.
    – phoog
    Jun 26, 2022 at 21:03
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    But in the case of jury duty, the firing took place while the person was protected. In the case of de-stateing, the very question being asked is whether there is a protection against being de-stated.
    – Alex
    Jun 26, 2022 at 21:17
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    Under that interpretation (which seems reasonable to me), it protects states from suddenly having all the responsibilities of being a state, without the equal suffrage in the Senate, but it doesn't protect them from not being part of that country at all. Just like a law requiring sick leave protects someone from suddenly having the responsibilities of an employee but without the right to paid sick leave, but it doesn't protect one from not being an employee at that company at all.
    – FrederikVds
    Jun 27, 2022 at 7:53

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