On something that was mentioned before: nothing in the requirement that States have a republican form of government mandates in turn that a state must have distinct municipal vs statewide levels of government. As long as you have the constitution or organic act for the new entity ensure proper separation of the 3 branches, you could have a polity that is a unitary both city AND state with just the one chief executive and the one legislative body.
The republicanism requirement does not require separation of powers. All it means is that the government be based generally on the consent of the governed with no hereditary sovereign. A parliamentary style of government that combines the executive and the legislative powers is also republican, so long as there is no hereditary monarch.
Hello. I welcome a further explaination. I honestly have no idea what you mean about transients and those being “left behind.” I think the New Columbia explanation of the proposal that has been tabled is pretty clear that no residents, permanent or temporary, would be “left behind.”
I guess I’d come down on the side of folding DC into Maryland on the principle of the thing, since I think the small states have way too much power compared to their population as it is. Reforming the Senate to address this is on way shakier Constitutional grounds than trying to make sure the problem doesn’t get worse.
I wouldn’t actually mind most of that–I don’t support necessarily those states, but I would oppose Alaska being reverted to a territory. It’s not even in the bottom 5 of states by population so this wouldn’t make much sense. Like I said in the OP I think some areas have so few people (like Wyoming) it’s questionable if we should’ve made them separate states.
But from a strictly constitutional perspective, it’s entirely a nonsense comment. States cannot be destroyed by other states or the Federal government. States can only be merged or split with the consent of the State(s) involved. DC isn’t in such a situation because it isn’t a state, the more I’ve considered it I believe it’s part of Maryland and always has been.
It has nothing to do with historical attachment to Maryland–for one there were hardly any people living in the area that became the initial 100 sq. mi. district (in Virginia or Maryland.) It wasn’t great land for a lot of reasons, it did have a couple towns but it wasn’t really a built up area.
FWIW, legally and constitutionally West Virginia should be part of Virginia. By any fair assessment West Virginia was unconstitutionally split off for strategic reasons in the Civil War, especially the current eastern panhandle of West Virginia, but it’s been recognized as a fait accompli by both the Supreme Court and the rest of the country, so it is what it is.
That doesn’t justify going down the wrong path with the District–the wrong path being creating a state there. I think the only real justifiable, constitutional, path is to amend the District Organic Act of 1801 to allow District residents votes in Maryland Senate elections, combine that with making the DC House Rep a voting member (which I believe the House has the authority to do) and DC is fine. That’s the only real alternative I see to retrocession. I don’t view statehood as constitutionally viable.
Actually I believe the Congress could force retrocession pretty easily. They chose to work collaboratively to retrocede the Virginia portion of the District, but I think the Congress could simply repeal centuries old law and pass a new one saying that while the Federal government appreciates Maryland’s session of authority (but not cession of ownership), it has decided to draw the district as a much smaller area focused around the White House, national mall, Supreme Court building, Capitol, and a few other government offices. I don’t believe Maryland would have any serious legal/constitutional ability to oppose this.
I don’t believe it would be a “forced merger.” The fact that after the cession, the residents continued to be ruled by Maryland common law, voted in Maryland elections, and paid Maryland taxes shows me that Maryland was only ceding authority, but not actual ownership. It’s similar to say, Cuba and Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. has legal occupation and authority of an area of land in Cuba, but the land is still part of Cuba, just as the cession is still part of Maryland.
The constitution and the writings of Madison are pretty clear actually. The District isn’t a territory under Article IV, I do not believe, even if Congress were to pursue the Article IV process, that the District could be voted in as a State. It goes expressly against the purpose of the cession–to create a physical space where the Federal Government is paramount and the Federal legislature is paramount. Madison elaborates on this a good bit in the Federalist Papers, while they certainly envisioned DC home rule long before it happened, the Founders speculated on a municipal legislature but with Congress still paramount, and that’s really the only logical reading of the constitution.
I think the only other option Congress would have would be to give land back to Maryland. If Maryland wanted to then split itself up, it could, following the same process Virginia did (the Virginia legislature and the U.S. Congress agreed to the split–of course the “Virginia legislature” was convened in Wheeling and made up of Unionists, and most people would agree that wasn’t the real Virginia legislature, but again, there was a legal fiction there.) But Congress would still then have to approved of the splitting of Maryland into two states, and I think a lot of people would oppose that, even many Democrats. Democrats from the DC area support it, but I think politicians in many states may be loath to see their power slightly diluted in the Senate, and the fact it will always be 2 Democratic Senators and 1 Democratic house member of course make it a political impossibility.
Retrocession would be the cleanest solution, the most practical is probably just amending the Organic Act to revert District Residents back to being Maryland residents for many voting purposes, giving them a vote in things like the Maryland Governor’s election, Senators and etc.
You’re right; I am wrong about its being an organized territory. Looking at Article IV, though, I don’t see where it precludes statehood, though I still think that reverting to Maryland is by far the best option.
So those advocating DC statehood.
Do you believe Franklin should have become a state?
If a group of Americans on land owned by the US demand to be made a state, should Congress be forced to accept them as a state?
If it is about what the majority in an area want, why is it wrong for a majority of states to choose to leave the Union?
Because I don’t believe it is a modification of its borders. I think it’s very similar to Guantanamo Bay. If the U.S. chose to end its lease, Cuba can’t block said action. Cuba is free to continue with the legal fiction that the U.S. is leasing the land [obviously a hypothetical journey here–in real life Cuba views the lease as invalid and rejects the annual payments for it, so would happily take the land back], refuse to exercise control over it or etc, but I suspect the Supreme Court would block any attempts by Maryland to disparately treats her citizens who live in that area.
If the cession was truly a complete cession, then Maryland common law would not have continued to apply in the land after the cession, and residents of the region would not have continued to vote in Maryland elections. But in matter of fact, both of those things was true.
Basically, the constitution provides for only one mechanism by which a state can give away land: by allowing part of its territory to be reconstituted as a new state. However for this to happen, it requires the consent of the State and the Congress. That process never happened for the region encompassing the District. The constitution also allows states to give to the Federal government land–but expressly only to create the Federal capitol district, so that land is not given free and clear, but under the condition it be used to create the Federal capitol district. For it to be used for anything else would require Maryland approve it and the Congress.
Now, the practical effect here is minimal in terms of making DC a state: it requires approval of both Maryland and Congress. Since we know Maryland approves, or most of its Democratic politicians (who dominate the State), that vote would be perfunctory. So versus the common proposals, mechanistically making DC a state isn’t all that different–it requires the approval of Congress (and the Maryland legislature–which is presumed to be given.)
But the flip side of it isn’t the same, since the land is still part of Maryland when it’s not being used to constitute a Federal district, Maryland can no more unilaterally declare it not part of Maryland than it could Baltimore or the western Maryland counties or any other part of Maryland. So if Congress revised the Organic Act to redraw the Federal District’s borders from the Maryland grant, I believe it could do so–and the land would automatically fall back under Maryland’s control. In effect the Federal use of it is use-specific, and without sans use Maryland is still and always has been the underlying owner of the land. What this means is Congress can likely force Maryland to take the District back. Maryland could then accept the fait accompli, or it could try to split itself up and make the area of the District a new State–it has that option under the constitution, but then we’re back to they need Congress to approve the split, which they are not required to do (and likely would not do.)
I disagree. The status of that parcel of land is at its core a matter of negotiation between two sovereign governments. The legitimacy of the American claim is not a judiciable question. The organization of sub-Federal government is obviously a judiciable question: the Constitution lays out certain rules, Congress and the states have to comply with the rules, and they aren’t allowed to willy-nilly invite them, otherwise another branch of government may step in and invalidate the actions. That isn’t true of Guantanamo at all.
It seems to me that Maryland law continued in the District for a time as a matter of convinience, not as a matter of true and perpetual rights to the land. In any case, that time is long since passed. What’s more, the retrocession of Arlington involved two votes by the Virginia legislature and two referendums in Alexandria. Why did the Federal government but up with such nonsense if the territory could have just been left on Virginia’s doorstep like a bag of poop?
The Constitution says that the Federal district shall be created by “cession” of territory by particular states and acceptance by Congress. The plain meaning of “cession” is to permanently relinquish, such how as the Louisiana Purchase was formalized through a “Treaty of Cession.” Cession doesn’t not typically mean “a loan of an indefinite period.” Do you suppose that France may have some latent claim on the American West because it merely “ceded” the land to the US Government? If not, then why does Maryland have a latent claim to DC after it “ceded” the land to the US Government?
The continuation of the previously existent laws and legal structure until such a time as the new one can be fully in place is a common transitional provision. The Residence Act provided that the law in the designated district, including citizens’ rights, remained that of the ceding states until Congress had a proper civil government up and running and DC-specific law was enacted. Doesn’t mean the land was never surrendered.
Only Congress can pass Federal laws, Maryland has no veto over Federal lawmaking. Since the District Organic Act represented the Federal government “taking over” the land grant, the Congress can as easily repeal it as they can any law. There is no mechanism in our constitution to make legislation irrevocable–regular legislation can always be changed or repealed by later legislation. The District Organic Act isn’t a constitutional amendment. The Congress is allowed to determine when and under what circumstances it passes legislation, but it isn’t bound by anything but its own votes and the Constitution–and the Constitution provides no mechanism for Maryland to veto Federal legislation nor any mechanism that would prevent Congress from repealing legislation passed by earlier Congresses. In fact it’d be destructive of our entire system of government if past congresses could, through ordinary legislation, pass irrevocable legislation.
This essentially answers your question about Virginia–the President at the time was involved in the process, and his position was he would support a retrocession if both Virginia and the people of then Arlington County, D.C. voted in the affirmative. Both did, so at that point he supported the retrocession, and then Congress passed a law. The choice to only pass retrocession legislation after two referendums in Virginia and Arlington was a political one, not a legal or constitutional requirement.
No, it’s because in our system we don’t allow States to just abandon land. That region was still par of Maryland and 100% the responsibility of Maryland until the Federal Government decided to take up governing it–but Maryland can no more force the Federal government to continue governing it than it can force the Federal government not to repeal any other law in force.
Those are different scenarios. The Louisiana Purchase was a sell from one fully sovereign state to another fully sovereign state, both with alloidal title to the land. It was transferred free and clear, a transfer of alloidal ownership. I see no reason to presume that was the case with the District cession, because it was made under specific and limited conditions, unlike a typical transfer of alloidal ownership.
Provide cites that the Constitution didn’t mean “cession” when it literally says “cession.” Your reasoning isn’t convincing enough to overcome the plain meaning of a well-understood English word.
The simple fact is that would result in two new liberal Democrats in the Senate (representing less than a million people) and this is not going to fly among Republican states that would have to ratify it. It would also really screw up the basic principle of federalism and sovereignty of states. It’s an ugly sidestepping of the problem.
