The Patriot Post® · Expanding DC Could Counter Virginia Gerrymander

The commonwealth of Virginia has been in the news a lot lately as its redistricting referendum went the way of the Democrats. After Governor Abigail Spanberger promised not to do so, she helped her Democrat pals transform the congressional delegation of a purple state with a nearly even 6-5 split favoring Democrats to a 10-1 Democrat split by tapping almost every district into a repository of Democrat voters surrounding our nation’s capital and other large Virginia cities. Pending the results of court battles, instead of three congressional districts in the suburbs of Washington, DC, there will now be five snaking their way into the area — all in the interest of “fairness,” as Democrats define it.

Given that, you have to hand it to legal eagle Chad Mizelle, whose bright idea regarding Virginia’s territory caught the attention of Fox News. You may recall that the Constitution set aside a 10-square-mile area for the national capital along the Potomac River, taking a little land from both Virginia and Maryland. However, in 1847, the territory that belonged to Virginia was returned to it. Mizelle thinks the District should take it back:

President Trump could issue an executive order declaring the slavery-motivated retrocession (of Virginia) unconstitutional, triggering certain legal action, and allowing the courts to finally weigh in on whether the county of Arlington and the city of Alexandria in fact properly belong to the District of Columbia.

That “slavery-motivated retrocession” was expanded by Not the Bee, as a contributor by the whimsical name of Davy Crockett explained more about the history: “After years of dithering, the Alexandria County region was ‘retroceded’ to Virginia, in no small part because local pro-slavery Democrat leaders were worried that if the District outlawed slavery, it could affect major slave-trade operations in Alexandria itself.” A decade and a half later, we went through a war to resolve the broader issue of slavery, but no one came back to reclaim that portion of Virginia for the District.

While the subject has been revisited a time or two over the years because of its dubious constitutionality, in the modern day that part of the District of Columbia has become home to perhaps 350,000 souls, as the former District took up all of Arlington County and a portion of the city of Alexandria. In and of itself, that population loss wouldn’t be enough to cost Virginia a congressional seat, but there would have to be further redistricting to accommodate the shift.

The idea has some risks, though. Former Virginians who had congressional representation wouldn’t be happy about being placed in the one part of the country that proudly sells license plates complaining about “Taxation Without Representation.” Moreover, adding that many people to the District of Columbia would push its population somewhere around the one million mark, and if Democrats can realize that long-cherished dream of making a state out of the District of Columbia, they would not only get two almost assuredly Democrat senators but, depending on just how many people are affected, possibly have enough population in the District to eke out two House seats. If that happened — and unless the House was expanded for the two new representatives, which it hasn’t been since 1929, despite the subsequent additions of Alaska and Hawaii — it would cost the two smallest two-district states one of their representatives. And while Rhode Island would be a wash in losing a Democrat, Montana would forfeit one of its two Republicans.

Needless to say, this would be an issue for the courts to decide, and that likely won’t happen in time for the 2026 midterms unless we want even more chaos in our upcoming election.

But let’s look at Mizelle’s idea through a different lens. Perhaps it is time to consider the question of representation for District of Columbia residents, whether or not that portion of Virginia is reacquired. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution provides for a district for the seat of government “not exceeding ten miles square.” That raises another possibility: why couldn’t the District of Columbia be limited to public lands, including and surrounding the Capitol and the White House? That would certainly be less than 10 square miles, meaning it conforms to the Constitution.

In theory, the only residents not represented would be the president and his family, and they have plenty of power on their own. The remainder of the District could be returned to Maryland, perhaps as a new independent city in that state, sharing the same status as Baltimore City, which is separate from surrounding Baltimore County. All that would do politically is make the (formerly) Free State an even darker shade of blue and maybe temporarily (until 2030 and the next Census) gain it a congressional seat at the expense of Montana.

The issue of Virginia and additional Democrats in the House can be easily resolved by another move involving Florida, which is considering its own redistricting to gain seats for the GOP — with a map featuring far more compact and contiguous districts than Virginia’s, by the way. That new map is predicted to gain four seats for the GOP, meaning the 2026 election will be even more contentious and unpredictable.

But then again, absolute power corrupts absolutely; we should be used to that.