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The continuing problem of representation for the people who live in Washington D C (600,000) arose again as a result of the recent compromise on the budget.
PBS had a story on this last night and there are all sorts of solutions that were very complicated and involved constitutional considerations.
The problem is that MCs (members of congress) are assigned to states and DC isn't a state. They made a special case for DC in 1964 and gave them 'the number of votes in the electoral college that they would have had if they were a state.' That took a constitutional amendment.
It was set up that way. "not exceeding ten Miles square" was the wording in the constitution.Virginia and Maryland ceded 100 square miles of land to the Feds to make DC. It was a rotated square. In 1847 the Feds ceded back to Virginia its part leaving the 2/3 that came from Maryland to be the District of Columbia. That part of Virginia is roughly the city of Arlington. Not all of the government is in DC. The Pentagon and CIA headquarters are in Virginia. Not everybody whose office is in DC lives in DC. All sorts of people who work in DC live in Virginia.
I'll bet that the alert reader saw a solution to the DC problem in that last paragraph.
Take 6 or 8 square miles of the capital that contain all the government buildings (in the current DC), restaurants, hotels, and a lot of room for more of them and enought for parks etc etc. Draw a line around it. Give the rest back to Maryland. Zone what the feds keep for business, government and parks. Don't let anybody but the President and VP live there. Repeal the amendment that gave DC electoral votes.
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Thursday, April 28, 2011
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As YA points out the issue is equitable representation in political affairs for residents of the District of Columbia. As I see it the problem is a political one and not a constitutional issue.
ReplyDeleteSo here is my solution (building on YA’s comments):
Dissolve the District by giving the land not occupied by a federal building back to Maryland. That’s it.
1. People who formally lived in DC would now live in Maryland and be politically represented at the state and federal level.
2. Article I Section 8 of the Constitution allows the creation of a District but does not require it – I see no problem there.
3. The last half of paragraph 17, Section 8, Article 1 beginning “and to exercise like Authority over all places …………” extends Federal control (and a sort of de jure Federal sovereignty) to all properties retained by the Fed as a result of the dissolution of the DC; the same as they now have over, say, a military base in Texas.
4. Amendment XXIII is obviated.