Faced with a Democratic White House that favors statehood for the District of Columbia, Republican lawmakers are ready with an alternative: Return the bulk of the nation's capital to Maryland.
"I probably would introduce an amendment that would have a significant portion of the District of Columbia . . . reunited with Maryland," said Oklahoma Sen. Don Nickles, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.The proposal is a long shot, since it would require approval of the Maryland Legislature, where there appears to be little interest in a District-Maryland merger.
One top state Senate aide said that there was a "zero" chance the legislature would support absorbing Washington, pointing to the state's fiscal troubles and the district's own money and crime woes.
Meanwhile, Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer has said that he would welcome the inclusion of the District of Columbia into Maryland - as long as D.C. residents approve, said Page Boinest, the governor's press secretary. But that too is unlikely, since the district residents backed statehood by a 3-to-2 margin in a 1980 initiative and two years ago elected a statehood delegation to lobby on behalf of New Columbia.
Still, even if Washington, D.C., is not absorbed into Maryland, the debate over whether the District of Columbia should become the state of New Columbia is of keen interest to Maryland and Virginia residents who work in Washington. They could receive an unwelcome greeting from the 51st state: a commuter tax.
District officials, noting that candidate Bill Clinton backed statehood last year in congressional testimony, are hopeful that President Clinton can offer the key support for final passage in the 103rd Congress that convenes in January.
"The failure to grant statehood to the men and women of the District of Columbia undercuts America's greatest promise - that the power flows from the people and not the other way around," Clinton said while campaigning this year.
President Bush and many Republicans are opposed to District statehood for a variety of reasons, not the least of them being that the Democratic stronghold would unquestionably produce two new Democratic U.S. senators.
"That would be part of it," conceded Nickles. "But I'm not sure any city should have two senators either. You're talking about one city having a tremendous amount of influence out of proportion with the rest of the country."
In the 1780s, Maryland donated land east of the Potomac River to create the new federal city, while Virginia ceded property west of the river. Virginia got its land back in 1846.
Nickles said that his proposal would return most of the city, with the exception of a federal enclave that includes Capitol Hill, the White House, monuments and federal agencies. He would tack on that amendment when the D.C. statehood measure, slated to be reintroduced in both houses early next year, comes up for a vote.
Supporters of the statehood measure argue that district residents have a non-voting delegate in the House and no vote in the Senate, even though the city has more than 600,000 residents, a population larger than three states: Wyoming, Alaska and Vermont. And district residents pay more in federal taxes than nine states.
While the city has a mayor and city council, its spending bills and other legislation must receive final approval from the federal government. (Federal payments to the district total $625 million, or roughly 19 percent of its $3.2 billion budget).
Nickles said that Congress does not have the sole authority to grant D.C. statehood. Since the the nation's capital was created by the U.S. Constitution, a constitutional amendment would be needed. Such an amendment requires a two-thirds passage by Congress and ratification by two-thirds of the states.