President Donald Trump may take unprecedented action to turn Virginia back to a deep red, Republican-controlled state… by making D.C. whole again.
He’s not alone. A Georgia Republican congressman has introduced legislation to undo what he calls an unconstitutional 1846 land transfer that handed Arlington County and the City of Alexandria from the District of Columbia back to Virginia.
President Trump could soon take it a step further with an executive order that would put the unconstitutional land transfer right back into the hands of the Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-G.A.) introduced the Make DC Square Again Act that would give Alexandria and the surrounding areas back to Washington, D.C.
McCormick argues that the original transfer of those communities to Virginia was never allowed by the U.S. Constitution in the first place.
“The Constitution never authorized Congress to carve pieces out of the federal District and hand them back to a state,” McCormick said. “Democrats have spent years manipulating maps and boundaries to rig elections. 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.”
The bill comes directly after Virginia Democrats’ successful redistricting referendum, which — if it survives ongoing legal challenges — would shift Virginia’s congressional delegation from a narrow 6-5 Democratic edge to a 10-1 Democratic advantage.
McCormick’s legislation or Trump’s potential executive order rests on the Constitution’s Enclave Clause, which grants Congress authority over the federal district “not exceeding ten miles square” to make the District of Columbia. His office argues the clause contains no authority for Congress to hand that territory back to the states — making the 1846 move of land to Virginia unconstitutional from the start.
The areas of Arlington and Alexandria alone account for roughly 250,000 votes in Virginia statewide elections, almost all Democrats. Without them, Virginia would again enjoy a strong Republican majority.
The idea has roots going back more than 150 years. Virginia originally ceded the land to the federal government in 1790 to help form the new national capital. It grabbed the land back in 1846, in part to protect slavery at a time when the District of Columbia was moving to abolish it.
Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to the U.S. attorney general and former acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, argued that Trump doesn’t need Congress to act — he could simply issue an executive order declaring the retrocession unconstitutional and force the Supreme Court to finally weigh in on whether the land properly belongs to D.C.
“President Trump could issue an executive order declaring the slavery-motivated retrocession 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,” Mizelle wrote.
The Virginia redistricting referendum that prompted the proposal is currently tied up in court after Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley ruled it unconstitutional on Wednesday.
Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, a Democrat, is currently appealing the decision.