OPINION:
President Trump opposes the Democrats’ renewed call to make Washington a state (“Trump calls D.C. statehood ’ridiculous,’” Web, Aug. 12). There’s good grounds for his opposition. D.C. statehood is both imprudent and unconstitutional.
Washington is a company town beholden to the federal government. Its residents can vote for president, and when Ronald Reagan was carrying 49 states in 1984, he received less than 14% of the vote there. D.C. statehood would give the city a perpetual lock on two Democratic senators and at least one Democratic congressman, handing it the swing vote in any closely divided Congress.
Statehood for D.C. is unconstitutional. In the 1790s, Maryland and Virginia ceded a 100-square mile area for the federal seat of government we call the District of Columbia. The Constitution gives Congress the power “to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” in this district.
The perpetual federal sovereignty of D.C. is confirmed by its size. The Constitution allows 100 square miles for a federal district, which is what was created in 1791. Even now, with a federal government far larger than the worst nightmares of the Constitution’s Founders, the federal government functions in Washington occupy a very small part of that 100 square miles.
The Supreme Court has said congressional tinkering with Washington is unconstitutional. In 1846, Congress ceded to Virginia the part of the city south of the Potomac River. Decades later, a resident of the ceded area claimed Virginia couldn’t tax his land because the area was still part of Washington. The court rejected his claim on prudential grounds, but said the cession was “in violation of the Constitution.”
JIM DUEHOLM
Washington
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