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With the district's population counted as part of its own for apportionment purposes [Maryland] would gain at least an additional seat in the House and one more electoral vote, increasing its political clout in the federal government.

Would that mean that DC's 3 electoral votes would vanish, in return for Maryland getting one additional House seat and 1 additional electoral vote? If so, I would be willing to make that tradeoff. Of course, I doubt the Democrats would go along with it, since they'd be losing 2 sure electoral votes in the exchange.

"Would that mean that DC's 3 electoral votes would vanish, in return for Maryland getting one additional House seat and 1 additional electoral vote? If so, I would be willing to make that tradeoff."

I have long advocated what the author proposes. Yes, DC would no longer have 3 electoral votes, although Maryland would go from 10 to 11. Adding the DC voters to MD's rolls would make the state prohibitively Democratic and it would take a miracle for a Republican to carry the new, larger Maryland (Bush would have gotten 37.3% to Gore's 59.2% in 2000, and since DC started voting for president in 1964, the only Republican to carry the combined DC and MD vote was Nixon in 1972). However, the last time Maryland went to the GOP candidate in a close presidential election was way back in 1948 (when carrying MD by 1.4% still wasn't enough for Dewey to defeat Truman), so I think we should see this as a net loss of two electoral votes for the Democrats rather than the creation of an 11-electoral-vote Democrat state.

And, for the record, giving the residents of the District of Columbia the right to vote for members of the House and Senate, as well as the President, is the right thing to do. They are U.S. citizens subject to federal laws, and should certainly have the same rights as all other Americans. It's just that DC isn't large enough to be its own state, so its residents should be citizens of Maryland.

There, that was simple enough. Now the hard part: Convincing the State of Maryland to take on all of the problems of Washington, DC.