I don't see a good way around this.
DC can never be a state - at least, not as it is. THAT much is in the Constitution. You can't have a state also be the center of the federal government.
You can carve out a tiny federal district - but then you STILL have residents with the same "complaint" - no 'representation'.So the idea of making "DC" a state minus the part that is a federal district, you have same problem - just a smaller number of residents. Even if THAT happens - I'm still unclear on the woding of the Constitution about carving up existing states.
You can't just give it back to Maryland. Maryland does not want it.
I do get some of the rationale FOR statehood - you have half a million people without direct representation in Congress. This is similar to the experience of people in the five U.S. territories with one exception - they don't have to pay federal taxes. (More or less). So while they don't have representation, they don't have to pay for it either. DC however - does. They do get money FROM the federal government - to the city, to be sure - but the federal government also collects a substantial amount of taxes from the District.
DC does have a non-voting rep in the House.
But near as I can gather - the point of a federal district is that Congress is itself representing the whole of the district, which is why so much of the management and logistics of the city is managed by Congress directly. The idea is that while representatives go to Washingto to BE represented, the District itself is represented by Congress as a whole body.
I can think of at least a couple - very costly - alternatives.
One is - District residents don't have to pay federal taxes. Done and done. Just like Samoa or the U.S, Virgin Islands. No taxes. The federal government will take a hit - right now they collect about 30 billion in taxes from the District - but in an age of multi-TRILLION dollar budgets - 30 billion is manageable.
There really needs to be a way to address the whole representation thing without going through the ringer of making a 69 square mile state - yeah, St Mary's County alone is more than FIVE TIMES that size.
DC can never be a state - at least, not as it is. THAT much is in the Constitution. You can't have a state also be the center of the federal government.
You can carve out a tiny federal district - but then you STILL have residents with the same "complaint" - no 'representation'.So the idea of making "DC" a state minus the part that is a federal district, you have same problem - just a smaller number of residents. Even if THAT happens - I'm still unclear on the woding of the Constitution about carving up existing states.
You can't just give it back to Maryland. Maryland does not want it.
I do get some of the rationale FOR statehood - you have half a million people without direct representation in Congress. This is similar to the experience of people in the five U.S. territories with one exception - they don't have to pay federal taxes. (More or less). So while they don't have representation, they don't have to pay for it either. DC however - does. They do get money FROM the federal government - to the city, to be sure - but the federal government also collects a substantial amount of taxes from the District.
DC does have a non-voting rep in the House.
But near as I can gather - the point of a federal district is that Congress is itself representing the whole of the district, which is why so much of the management and logistics of the city is managed by Congress directly. The idea is that while representatives go to Washingto to BE represented, the District itself is represented by Congress as a whole body.
I can think of at least a couple - very costly - alternatives.
One is - District residents don't have to pay federal taxes. Done and done. Just like Samoa or the U.S, Virgin Islands. No taxes. The federal government will take a hit - right now they collect about 30 billion in taxes from the District - but in an age of multi-TRILLION dollar budgets - 30 billion is manageable.
There really needs to be a way to address the whole representation thing without going through the ringer of making a 69 square mile state - yeah, St Mary's County alone is more than FIVE TIMES that size.
