There is a separate diary thread, earlier, that raises all kinds of questions about representation and possibly retrocession of the District of Columbia. Since I have a certain knowledge about the subject, having once done a detail paper about it, I responded in the comments to that thread.
Because I think it is an important issue, I have tgaken the lbierty of reposting what I wrote as a separate diary entry, with my remarks in the box belowfor extended comments.
Please read Article I, Section 8, clause 17 -- the District is created by Cession of states (originally Maryland and Virginia) and acceptance by Congress. The precedent of what to do if the territory is not to remain in the District was established in 1846, when what is now Arlington County and most of hte City of Alexandria (then the town and County of Alexandria) were retroceded back to Virginia.
One must note that once the residents of the District began to realize they couldn't vote, attempts were made to undo the creation of the District. The citizens of Alexandria began by protesting in Ferbuary of 1801. The problem was further compounded because Congressed passed a law which continued applying separate Virginia and Maryland laws on opposite sides of the Potomac until such time as the Congress could provide a uniform code of laws, but did not provide such a uniform code prior to the Retrocession of the Virginia portion in 1846.
In January of 1846 the Common Council of Alexandria submitted the results of a plebiscite favoring retrocession held in 1840 to the Virginia General Assembly and the Congress. The issue was extensively debatged, with among other Geroge Washington Parke Custis (step-grandson of 1st presdient) speaking out against the proposal, largely on procedural grounds. Nevertheless, the Virignia General Assembly supported the proposal, for among other reasons of the disparate economic treatment of the Virginia and Maryland portions of the District. This was partially because there had been a ban on construction of public buildings on the Virignia side of the Potomac, but there was also a sense that Georgetown was favored to the disadvantage of Alexandria.
I will not recapitulate the entire history of how the retrocession occurred in Virginia {I once did avery detailed paper on the subject of retrocession}. I will note that what happened in 1846-47 does set a precedent. Even though there are further actions, such as under Lincoln possibly regaining the Virginia portion, Presdient Taft's efforts to regain about 7,300 acres of shoreline [technically, as a result of the Mt Vernon Agreement prior to the Constitution, the entire river belonged to Maryland, thus when one drives on the GW Parkway in Virginia an goes onto Boundary Channel Island or walks onto what is now Roosevelt Island, but had been known as Mason's Island when John Mason, son of George, lived there, one is in the District of Columbia), a senator from Montana tried to get legal opinions that the 1846 act of retrocession was unconstitutional because there was no provision in Article I for returning land to the states, the precedent seems clear. Any part of the District that is to be removed from the district is to be retroceded to the state from which it came, and for this to occur there must be agreement between the Congress, the people in that portion of the District, and the state accepting back the retroceded territory.
That we have amended the Constitution (XXIII) to allow for presidential vote is independent of this process. That the Constitution had to be amended to give presidential vote also seems to indicate that to do anything except retrocede to Maryland would also require a Constitutional amendment. By the way, this would probably include the giving of full voting rights in the House of Representatives since such right seems to be Constitutionally based.
Thus much of the discussion in the thread on retrocession is to my mind pointless. Even forgetting issues of whether you could get approval from Republicans in the Congress, or any other such tangential issues, all of that is meaningless in light of the historic precedent of 1846-47.
It has always seemed to me that the solution for residents of the District is for Congress to be willing to redefine the District in such as way that it is limited to major concentrations of federal buildings and to retroceded the rest back to Maryland. How this could be addressed for those people who live mixed in among federal buildings on Capital Hill I do not know. I can see no way short of amending the Constitution to do anything else.
