Republican proposes giving Democratic-leaning part of Virginia back to DC after redistricting vote

Virginia’s redistricting referendum, which could net Democrats a 10-1 House seat advantage, is spurring Republican legislation that would expand the borders of Washington, D.C., and cost the state Democratic voters.

Georgia Republican Rep. Rich McCormick said Thursday he introduced the Make DC Square Again Act, a bill that would undo the 19th century return of the southwestern part of the district to the state of Virginia, known as retrocession.

“The Make DC Square Again Act restores the original ten-mile-square District and ends the artificial advantage Virginia Democrats have recently gained from all the federal bureaucrats moving into Virginia,” McCormick said in a statement.

The measure’s prospects are unlikely in a Congress that can barely keep the lights on. But it’s the latest partisan salvo in an effort to gain the upper hand in the closely divided House ahead of this year’s contested midterms elections.

Proponents of statehood for the federal district are critical of the measure, saying it shows how Washington can be used as a “political football.”

“The residents of the district are not fully participating in the democracy of this country because we are not allowed to,” said Alicia Yass, advocacy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C. “Bills like this that mess around with the district just show how important it is for D.C. to have the full benefits and rights of a democracy.”

Critics of Virginia’s referendum are calling on President Donald Trump to issue an executive order declaring the pre-Civil War return of Alexandria and Arlington to Virginia unconstitutional.

“This order would be on better legal footing than many of President Joe Biden ’s most egregious orders,” former Trump Justice Department chief of staff Chad R. Mizelle wrote in a Fox News opinion article.

Here’s a closer look at the issue.

What even is this? Retro-retrocession?

Retrocession refers to the reincorporation into Virginia of the land it gave for the federal capital. Beginning in 1846, Congress voted to allow 31 square miles (80 square kilometers) of the District of Columbia to return to Virginia. That included the City of Alexandria and the areas that now include the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery.

Virginia and Maryland had given over the land decades before to form the nation’s capital, but resident’s rumblings over a trailing local economy and fears that Congress would ban slavery in the district fueled the return to Virginia in 1847, according to the City of Alexandria. Virginia would go on to secede from the United States, with the Confederacy’s capital in Richmond.

The discussion over reversing retrocession has kept up in the decades since. Proponents argue that Congress never had the power to cede back the land and that the local referendum failed to meet the voting requirements outlined by Congress for retrocession.

Whether Congress could vote to bring parts of Virginia back into the federal district isn’t clear. George Derek Musgrove, an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, was skeptical of McCormick’s effort because the congressman said the measure stemmed from the results of the Virginia referendum, which could benefit Democrats.

“It’s not even a retrocession bill. It’s really a Virginia voter suppression bill,” he said.

The text of the measure wasn’t immediately available.

Why does it matter now?

The area holds the separate municipalities of the City of Alexandria and Arlington County, which are packed with Democratic voters. In the 2024 presidential election in both places, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris won 77% of the votes cast, with Donald Trump pulling only about 20%.

The region’s blue voters helped bolster Virginia’s redistricting referendum, approved by voters Tuesday to boost Democrats’ chances of winning four additional seats in the U.S. House. But if the entire area was ceded back to the District of Columbia, the electoral advantage in the new districts would be dulled and new districts would be drawn in light of the state’s shrunken footprint.

The region’s approximately 400,000 residents would also likely lose full representation in both the U.S. Senate and House.

Other possible pathways

McCormick’s legislation invokes making the district “square” again and refers to how the boundaries would look on the map if they’re restored. It’s not the only proposal out there.

The American Capital Project, a little-known group that advocates for the land to be returned to the District of Columbia, says the path forward is through a presidential executive order declaring the original law void. That would eventually push the question in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, forcing it to rule on the legality of the original law.

It’s unclear who funds or manages the American Capital Project. Its website does not list any contact information nor the names of the people or groups behind it.

There have also been efforts, pushed by Democrats, to grant the district statehood. In 2021, the Democrat-led House passed such a bill, but it did not advance out of the Senate. At the time some Senate Republicans suggested returning the current district to Maryland as a way to give voters their a chance for full representation in Congress.