Posted on 03/11/2019 10:41:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
The fight over statehood for the District of Columbia has been going on for as long as most you can probably remember. And in all that time, nothing has come of it. While DC residents do have some non-voting voices in the House, they don’t have full membership in the democracy club, leading to cries of taxation without representation. But what to do about it? The Constitution specifically sets aside room (up to ten miles square) for a federal capital and specifies that it will fall under the control of the federal government. Just converting the whole joint to a state is problematic at best.
But maybe there’s a better way, and one that we’ve known should be possible for many years. At Outside the Beltway, Doug Mataconis looks at a proposal from the WaPo’s Charles Lane that’s receiving a fresh round of attention. It doesn’t involve anyone seceding from the union. And if you can’t (or just don’t want to) create a 51st state out of DC, how about we give the land where the voters live (not the land where the government buildings are) back to Maryland in an act of retrocession?
It is an anomaly both patent and easy, so easy, to solve. The answer is right there in Douglass County, Md.
To save you some Googling time: Douglass County is not a real place — yet. Rather, it is the new jurisdiction that would be created by returning the residential portions of the District to Maryland, a process known as “retrocession,” conceived by third-generation Washingtonian and policy gadfly David Krucoff.
The genius of Krucoff’s plan is to sidestep all the difficulties, political and constitutional, of creating a new state, or state equivalent, out of the District, and instead to simply allow its people to share the representation Maryland already has.
As Doug goes on to point out, there’s no issue with the constitutional legality of retrocession, particularly when it comes to the DC area. That’s because we already did it in 1847, so the precedent already exists.
Retrocession would not be an unprecedented action, specifically with regard to the Federal District. When the District of Columbia was first formed during the Washington Administration, it included land from both Maryland and Virginia. However, it was understood at the time the Federal Government itself would be based in that part of the land made up of the portion of land ceded to the Federal Government by Maryland. The Virginia portion, meanwhile, would have presumably become land for residential and business development.
Before that could occur, though, the Federal Government concluded that it did not need the land that Virginia had ceded for its contribution to the Federal District. As a result, in 1847, the United States returned Virginia’s portion of the Federal District. That area now includes the majority of Arlington County, which has become a metropolitan area all its own as well as the home to some 235,000 people and the location of employment for tens of thousands of more people.
Maryland has previously raised objections about taking the land back, largely because of the costs involved in absorbing some low-income areas and all the various state functions currently covered by Washington. But that area has grown so affluent in recent decades that Maryland would likely be cashing in.
So will it happen? Color me doubtful because of politics. Democrats will certainly fight this tooth and claw because it doesn’t achieve the actual goal many of them have around the country for a DC statehood project. Republicans would probably be (mostly) okay with this retrocession plan because it wouldn’t impact that Senate and would likely only add one more blue House seat in the already blue state of Maryland.
That’s precisely why Democrats will oppose it. The real goal for most of them who don’t actually live in the District has nothing to do with providing proper representation to the District’s voters. What they really want is to create a new state with not only one House member but two new Senators who would all automatically wind up being Democrats given the area’s current ideological leanings. That’s a huge shift in their directions. Offering them one more Maryland House seat to fight over is less than half a fig.
That’s a shame because DC residents do have some legitimate complaints in this matter. And it’s additionally ironic that the party of choice for most of those voters is the one that will most likely strangle this very achievable solution in its cradle.
There was a specific reason The early founders didn’t want DC to be a state with representation. They didn’t want Rome.
And they were right.
False argument. People knowingly moved to DC fully understanding the voting and representation issues - and they moved there anyway. If you don’t like the representation issue, it is a simple matter to move to someplace that better fits your representation desires.
I have a solution to the statehood question.
No to statehood.
(Besides, no right thinking state would go for it)
I thought this was proposed in the 70’s, and Maryland said they wanted absolutely no part of it.
A simple law stating for the purposes of representation, residents of Washington, D.C. are to be counted as residents of Maryland for federal representation, federal elections, and for purposes of apportionment of representatives.
For all other local purposes, the District will continue to be taxed and governed as usual.
Cede the residential areas back to Maryland, just like was done with areas of Virginia.
Government employees should not be eligible to vote in elections. The reasons should be obvious by now.
DC is a good start on that.
My solution is to keep the district Federal but to allow the citizens to act as a part of a neighboring state like Maryland or Virginia.
The non-Federal parts of DC would then come under the laws of the appropriate state and the citizens of DC would count towards that state’s census figures.
DC is a good start on that.
1) Do you intend to include the Military as "government employees?"
2) DC has voted in Presidential Elections since the Twenty-third Amendment was passed in 1961.
If DC became a state, I predict an unofficial scramble by both parties to buy a majority. The District today votes heavily Democrat, but that could change. It's small and is a generally attractive place to live. I would urge as many Republicans as possible in the hopelessly blue suburban counties of Maryland to ditch their commutes and move into DC. This could be fun. Given the non-enforcement of ballot security laws, several hundred freepers could vote from my address alone.
How about: members of a Government Employees Union should not be allowed to vote?
People aren’t whining about voting rights. This is entirely about creating a new democrat state for congressional and senate seats.
Oh, yeah. The Left is attacking this on many fronts, and DC just is one aspect.
Allowing illegals to vote
Lowering the voting age
Pushing for harvesting of ballots to be legal in all states
Outright voter fraud
Legal challenges to elections
Pushing to get rid of the Electoral College
Making pacts between states to give all their delegates to whoever wins the popular vote nationwide...
They are pushing on all fronts. Statehood for DC is just one of them.
As a first step towards making D.C. A state, I say, move the federal government out. Federal agency headquarters should be relocated to separate states and Congress and the President should sit in different state capitals for periods of four years and then move to another state. Why not, we do it with Super bowls?
Ten years after implementing these changes, we could take a serious look at statehood for whatever is left of DC.
Workable answer: no.
Second answer: replace DC with an online virtual government, declare the city itself a historical monument, giving each MD and VA their original land back.
Reattach it to Maryland. They’ll get the same two leftist senators and one new viable Congress critter
No.
2) DC has voted in Presidential Elections since the Twenty-third Amendment was passed in 1961.
A big mistake. One that could be corrected in the future.
Government employees in the civilian bureaucracy have a proven record of consistently voting for expanded Government, higher taxes, and totalitarian regulations, all at the expense of citizens who are not Government employees.
And why should they do otherwise? It is in their systemic best interest to vote for themselves at every body else's expense. There is no effective check on that tendency, and they are the ones who count the votes.
That should stop. Civil Service employees should not be allowed to vote.
Citizens in the Military Services have not shown such abusive tendencies and most have made genuine sacrifices for the benefit of the country.
They should get a vote.
This is not difficult to figure out. If for no other reason than the fact that the democrats want statehood for D.C.; that’s reason enough not to let it happen. But then there are other reasons too; I’m sure.
This is not difficult to figure out. If for no other reason than the fact that the democrats want statehood for D.C.; that’s reason enough not to let it happen. But then there are other reasons too; I’m sure.
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