The White House yesterday issued a press release threatening to veto the blatantly unconstitutional bill creating a House seat for the District of Columbia.
There’s a reason it took a Constitutional Amendment to give D.C. three Electoral College votes. Indeed, the Supreme Court had rejected attempts to accomplish that through simple legislation.
Congress passed an Amendment in 1978 to the effect that, “For purposes of representation in the Congress, election of the President and Vice President, and article V of this Constitution, the District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall be treated as though it were a State.” It failed to win ratification by the state legislatures. That’s not surprising; treating a city as if it were a state is to the advantage of no state.
While the District was never intended to become it major population center, it nonetheless became just that. A generation ago, it’s population exceeded that of thirteen states; now, only Wyoming is smaller. Residents have all of the obligations of citizenship and are denied federal representation. That’s obviously a problem.
The solution, however, is neither unconstitutional legislation nor creation of a new state the geographic size of an average county. Retrocession of residential D.C. to Maryland is the obvious solution but not the only one.
