Where do you see a minimum?
Where does it said that land must be retrocessed? Just because there was a retrocession of land, doesn't mean that land can't be turned into state instead. Maryland doesn't even want DC.
What they want doesn't really matter. The size of DC was set in the 1790 Residence Act. The 10x10 square miles size is set in the Constitution, Article I § 8.17. I quote.
I've mistakenly remembered it as a minimum, but it is in fact a maximum, and a sensible one. Tl;dr, the land was donated by Maryland and the size of the Seat of Government is set in the Constitution. If the space is vacated, it returns to Maryland whether Maryland wants it or not, barring some kind of extraordinary action by both the Federal and the State government. In complete theory you could reduce the size of the Seat of Government to just the general area of the White House and the Capitol, but a 10x10 miles square is already fairly small and I don't see a reason to shrink it any further. That land, whatever shape and location it might be at any given time, is de facto, constitutionally, ineligible for statehood.
You missed my point, completely.
Reagan had a 52% approval rating and is universally revered among fiscal conservatives, you must be avoiding large swathes of people in your day-to-day. Don't worry, you might dislike him, but he winks at you from the skies above and makes sure your tax returns never get lost in the mail.
HAD being the key word here. Not only did his mind turn to mush while he was still president, dude did a ton of illegal and super racist shit. With the retrospective of time, nobody should view the man as a saint. They're just nostalgic for the era of free-flowing coke and unchecked stock market gains.
...For the few anyway. For the masses it was free-flowing crack/police brutality and unchecked mass death overseas. We're still living with the after-effects of "Reaganomics," aka corporate rule, but those aren't near as fun, even for the elites and yuppies....what is the process for nominating a new saint, and how do I put in my vote?
3,589 Americans died from Covid yesterday while the President of the United States played Mario Kart. https://t.co/Rid8fd3pqJ
— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) February 14, 2021
So, there is no minimum.
Doesn't say anything about automatic retrocession and even if it did, Maryland already said they don't want DC. So, I don't know why they would suddenly change their mind, if automatic retrocession was actually a thing. Shrinking it further will give more people better representation. Seems like a good enough reason for me. Then it is a good thing that the people that are asking for statehood, aren't asking to completely remove the federal land.
low effort post, meet low effort response
Should have been no response.
fair.
My point was that regardless of how you organise the new border, not all of Washington is eligible to become a state. There will always be an assigned area for the seat of government because the constitution rightfully secures one. I never said that the borders can't move - they do move and have moved in the past. As for how automatic the process is, upon vacating a territory it de facto returns to its previous owner, so to speak. Whether Maryland wants it or not, it would be a whole separate matter to settle. The formation of a new state is no easy task, there's a number of U.S. territories that are yet to be recognised as states, and have been pursuing statehood for years. You have to create a whole new state government, new state-level law enforcement, codify state law, it's not something you just come up with on a whim. Is it possible? Sure, theoretically, as long as we're talking about a partial conversion, which is why I called your statement "half true". As it stands, District of Columbia is ineligible for statehood, my opinion has not changed. The legal framework for its existence is codified and the historical precedent in regards to land ownership is set. If the federal government wishes to vacate any territory, they would necessarily return it to whatever state has originally ceded it - it can't be no man's land until the citizens of Washington decide to do something about it, that's silly. You can't have the capitol of the country surrounded by a void.
Reagan is dubious, but Trump is unequivocally a complete and utter bag of dicks.
I don't have any particular issue with the general area becoming a state as long as DC stays independent. No one state should have an outsized influence on the rest of the union, and being the state that is also the seat of government and thus effectively in charge of federal law, as well as the military, is one surefire way to destabilise it. The electoral college already automatically rebalances the level of power each state has in general elections, so the number of states participating in the union is immaterial to me. I'm simply insisting that the 10x10 area surrounding the White House and the Capitol specifically cannot and should not become an individual state - it should be independent, neutral ground.
