HR 51, DC to become a state? Does this kick it off?
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The Constitution defines a unique status for the seat of the federal government. A constitutional amendment is required to change that. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gave Congress plenary local lawmaking power to “exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District” — the broadest power Congress exercises anywhere. The 23rd Amendment, passed by Congress at the urging of President Dwight Eisenhower and then-senator John F. Kennedy in 1960, and ratified the following year, gave D.C. residents the right to vote in presidential elections as they would if D.C. were a state. But it defines D.C. as a permanent constitutional entity of its own, outside of statehood. The Justice Department has repeatedly concluded, under administrations of both parties, that D.C. statehood requires amending the Constitution. That isn’t going to happen. The last time such an amendment was tried, in the 1970s, only 16 states signed on.
The District of Columbia is overwhelmingly Democratic, which is inseparable from why Democrats are so eager to give it representation in the Senate. Indeed, some Democrats have argued for D.C. statehood as partisan retaliation for Republicans’ filling the Ruth Bader Ginsburg vacancy on the Supreme Court so close to the 2020 election. Republicans make up only 6 percent of the District’s registered voters. No Republican has been elected mayor of D.C. since the start of home rule in 1975. There are no Republicans on the D.C. city council, and there have been none for over a decade. Richard Nixon’s 21.6 percent of the vote in 1972 is the only time a Republican presidential candidate cracked a fifth of the vote; George H. W. Bush in 1988 was the last Republican to crack a tenth of the vote. Given Democrats’ naked and obvious partisan motives in pushing for statehood, there is no prospect that the required 38 states could be persuaded to amend the Constitution even if a Democrat-controlled Congress mustered the required two-thirds vote in both houses to pass an amendment.
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/10/19/the-district-of-columbia-should-not-be-a-state/
You are correct in that a constitutional amendment would be required to change the seat of power.
But unfortunately you are wrong about what the democrats are doing because the legal wording in their proposed bill invalidates that constitutional requirement, and will create a 51st state out of parts of Washington DC.
Technically, they are not changing the seat of power, they are resizing the District of Colombia, by reducing it's borders to only a few city blocks- blocks that contain all the key federal buildings. The remainder of DC (outside of the new border) will then become a 51st state. That is their actual, literal plan.
Yes, you are correct in your clarification. I took the statement from the article linked in my post, but omitted the part about the re-sizing of the District of Columbia.
Here is the remainder:
It is theoretically possible to make an end run around this obstacle by creating a new, separate state out of parts of D.C. without amending the Constitution. That, however, would create a new set of problems. Carving a state out of the existing District might avoid the constitutional issue, at least if Maryland consents. D.C. consisted originally of land ceded to the federal government by Maryland and Virginia, but the Virginia sections were returned (retroceded) in 1846. Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution provides that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.” There is some question whether the land ceded by Maryland was ceded irrevocably or only for purposes of being part of the federal District. Legal expert opinions collected by the Congressional Research Service lean toward the view that the grant was irrevocable. Maryland is, in any event, a Democrat-dominated state, despite having a Republican governor, so it would likely consent eventually.
Thanks for offering the clarification.
Thank you for providing a concise explanation of those facts as well.