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60 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 160 (1991-1992)
Constitutionality of D.C. Statehood

handle is hein.journals/gwlr60 and id is 168 raw text is: The Constitutionality of D.C. Statehood Peter Raven-Hansen* Abstract The constitutional issue presented by D.C. statehood is not whether Congress may turn the District of Columbia into a state, but whether it may reduce the District's size and admit the balance as New Columbia. The District Clause in the Constitution gives Congress plenary legislative authority which it has already used twice to change the District's size. Downsizing the District again would not fundamentally impair its constitutional function. Mary- land's consent to statehood is not required because its original grant of land for the District was unconditional. New Columbia would therefore be formed from federal, not Maryland lands. D.C. statehood would moot the Twenty-third Amendment with- out formal repeal because the amendment's purposes would be accomplished by allowing residents of the downsized District to vote as if they were citizens of New Columbia, and because no one would have standing to complain of the amendment's resulting obsolescence. Finally, New Columbia would satisfy the only con- stitutionally imposed prerequisite for statehood-a republican form of government. * Professor of Law, National Law Center, The George Washington University. I wish to thank my colleague Professor Stephen Saltzburg, for his comments, and Stephen C. Knight, Andrew C. Mergen, Corby Sturges, and Amy H. Weiser, former and present National Law Center students who assisted me in my research. A short version of this article was presented as a speech to the 1990 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. November 1991 Vol. 60 No. 1

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