I don’t believe Anacostia was ever one of the cities within the District of Columbia; originally, the District included the City of Washington (then much smaller in extent), two other cities of Georgetown and Alexandria, and two counties, Washington County (the non-urban area of the District east of the Potomac) and Alexandria County (the non-urban area of the District west of the Potomac). Alexandria and Alexandria County were the part retroceded to Virginia (in 1846, not 1834 as I mistakenly said above); Alexandria County become the current Arlington County (and you can still see the old perfectly square border of the original District of Columbia in the Arlington County line); the independent City of Alexandria has since annexed some territory beyond the limits of the original District.
A new state formed from D.C. could be called Anacostia if that’s what the people of D.C. wanted–it’s a pretty name, really–but I suspect the name “Anacostia” is these days too strongly identified with one particular section of the city for that to work.
I like Columbia. Of course, that is reminiscent of Columbus which isn’t exactly trendy these days. One section of the city is already called Georgetown, how about Marthatown?
Whatever, it will never happen. Republicans would never allow an extra 3 Democratic electors.
The two senators would be a big deal, but it already has three electors, and there’s little chance that the rump district would get to keep those three in addition to the new state’s three. So assuming the House of Representatives wasn’t increased in size, this would reduce the total number of electors by one at the next census (so only 269 would be needed to win), and there’s every possibility that that elector would come out of the Democrats’ total depending on how the next census went (Rhode Island is always on the bubble of losing a seat).
Just to be clear, the “City of Washington” is a phantom entity or “paper city.” So far as I know, there are no municipal governmental entities or services whose name incorporates the phrase “City Of Washington.” They are in the name of the District of Columbia.”
And local residents almost always refer to it as “the District” or “D.C.” I believe even the Washington Post styles it as “the District.”
The only entities I can think of with “Washington” in the name are multi-jurisdictional—Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. And no one ever references them by their full name.
So I don’t think any local residents would miss the “Washington” moniker.
Regarding 2/3 vote vs. simple majority to retrocede most of DC.
Due to the elector thing, you’d definitely want to amend the Constitution. A simple state line redrawing only requires state and Congressional approval.
It would be a big problem if a tiny number of voters got to pick 1 elector (the minimum it could have). This isn’t Wyoming, after all.
I forgot to mention that a large scale, but not 100% retrocession would avoid the state name issue. It would be called “Maryland”.
