As President Donald Trump threatens to involve his administration further in local affairs, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has proposed that the District of Columbia be retroceded into Maryland.
District officials have been advocating for statehood for decades, with lobbying reaching a fever pitch during the previous Trump administration despite the GOP’s strong opposition. Raskin has a different vision for how the district’s residents can gain voting representation in the Senate and House of Representatives.
Raskin stated on the City Cast DC podcast earlier this week that he advised Mayor Muriel Bowser to consider retrocession, and that she “took it under advisement.”
“If you guys want to think about coming back to Maryland for this period, you would definitely be safer in the free state than you’d be under the brutal thumb of MAGA colonialism,” Raskin told the podcast’s audience.
When the district was established in the nineteenth century, it included portions of land ceded by Virginia and Maryland.
The Virginia portion of the federal district, which included present-day Arlington County and the city of Alexandria, was returned to the commonwealth in 1847, leaving the Maryland portion as the entirety of present-day Washington.
The district did not have voting rights in presidential elections until 1961, when it was granted three electoral votes, and it has had a nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives since 1970. These votes have consistently gone to Democratic candidates.
Activists and the local government have advocated for statehood for the district, excluding the portions that would fall under the constitutionally mandated federal district. They are seeking two Senate seats and a voting member of the House of Representatives as part of the statehood process.
District officials have repeatedly rejected the idea of retrocession into Maryland, stating that they would only accept statehood.
“DC voters have already said loud and clear that we do not want retrocession, we want statehood,” the local government’s statehood website reads, citing a 2016 referendum that supported statehood.
While Democrats and district officials have advocated for statehood, some Republicans have proposed abolishing home rule in the district and returning control of local affairs to the federal government.
