I've done some looking into this proposal to make DC a state. It is unconstitutional. Article I Section 8, Clause 17, allowed the creation of the District to be the seat of the federal government. The land for this district was acquired by cession of land from two states. (The southwestern portion of this district - the land southwest of the Potomac River - was returned to Virginia.) It was set aside to be the seat of the Government of the United States, not to be made into a separate state at anytime in the future. It has the sole purpose, under the Constitution, to be the seat of the government; nothing else.
If the people living in the District feel deprived of a right to vote, they can move to a place other than the District, or the District can be moved to an unpopulated location and the current district returned to Maryland where those residents may vote for representation in Maryland just like everyone else in this country in their respective states.
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1, makes provisions for the admittance of new states into the Union. Currently, the District consists of land originally ceded by Maryland for the sole and specific purpose of being the seat of the Federal Government. If that sole and specific purpose is betrayed, Maryland should and of right ought to reclaim that land and be the state legislative party whose consent is required by this Article to have part of its land become a separate state, along with the consent of Congress. Congress cannot admit a new state without the consent of the state whose land is being parsed for that purpose.
The District is not a territory. By Article I Section 8, Clause 17, the District is not self governing. It is exclusively governed by Congress because it is the seat of the Government. Ergo, it has no legislature of its own to petition for, nor consent to, admittance to the Union as a state.
HR51 is nothing less than a devious, dastardly, underhanded, and unconstitutional quest by the Democrat Party to acquire power that it cannot otherwise acquire with its platform when subject to the vote of We the People. They have to steal it.
Woody
