A Republican lawmaker is proposing to return Arlington and Alexandria to Washington, D.C., a move aimed at countering Democrats’ newly strengthened grip on Virginia’s congressional map following this week’s redistricting vote.
The “Make D.C. Square Again Act” from Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., comes after voters approved Virginia’s new Democratic-backed map positioning the party to expand its congressional seat advantage by linking blue Northern Virginia suburbs with more rural districts — a shift Republicans warn could dilute GOP strength statewide.
Rep. Donald Beyer, D-Va., on Thursday lambasted McCormick’s plan to finish what lawmakers in the 1860s started and return the heavily Democratic district to the District.
“Rich McCormick’s bill is an embarrassing legislative tantrum,” Beyer told Fox News Digital.
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“It is also unconstitutional, and a stupid waste of time. Republicans upset about the passage of Virginia’s redistricting referendum should stop whining, as they have no one to blame but themselves.”
McCormick’s bill called the 1846 retrocession “unconstitutional” and restore the District of Columbia’s original 100-square-mile boundary.
He lamented the redistricting vote and noted that Sen. Benjamin Wade, R-Ohio, originally sparked the retrocession movement with legislation in 1866. An 1836 effort by Sen. William Preston, a Whig from South Carolina, to cede the entirety of Washington, D.C., to Maryland also failed.
Alexandria County — now Arlington County and the city of Alexandria — retroceded from the District of Columbia to Virginia amid alleged economic inequities with then-Georgetown County, D.C., political mismanagement and tensions over Alexandria’s then-booming slave trade, as the North, including Washington, D.C., opposed the practice.
All that remains of Washington, D.C., on the Virginia side of the Potomac River is Columbia Island, also known as Lady Bird Johnson Island, which remains with the District of Columbia due to an arcane law regarding the river’s high-water mark.
Presidents Abraham Lincoln and William Taft also voiced support for Wade’s mission, but de-retrocession routinely died in the Senate in the several times it was tried.
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“Restore to the District of Columbia the portion of its territory taken away by the retrocession,” Taft demanded in his 1912 State of the Union.
McCormick argued that “absent the vote of DC bureaucrats,” the other 90% of Virginia’s geographic voice would remain intact with a “substantial Republican majority.”
He said 250,000 votes in Arlington and Alexandria — which Beyer’s district comprises along with parts of southern Fairfax — should rightly belong to Washington, D.C.
Beyer said that Virginia’s voice opposing President Donald Trump was rightly heard in Tuesday’s election and that Republicans like McCormick are trying to instead “permanently deprive hundreds of thousands of my constituents of their right to vote in federal elections.”
“Their contempt for voters is breathtaking,” Beyer said.
Beyer added that Americans want Congress to focus on economic issues and halting Trump’s Iran War but are instead faced with Republicans “humiliating themselves” to curry the president’s favor.
“Voters will remember,” he said.
In a response to Fox News Digital, McCormick shared a meme of a Google Map with Beyer’s portrait bordered by the District of Columbia.
“On the bright side, you can run for mayor now, Don Beyer.”
Former assistant U.S. Attorney and Heritage Foundation fellow Zack Smith noted to Fox News Digital that Taft later became Chief Justice of the U.S. and had legally analyzed retrocession to be “problematic”
“This questionable action should not be used as justification for radically transforming the boundaries and the status of the District of Columbia by simple legislation,” Smith wrote in a recent law review article.
Smith argued that Maryland’s consent should have been efforted in order to create Arlington and Alexandria, citing colonial law regarding Maryland having land carved from itself for the District – and not for the eventual formation of a piece of another state.
“Since Maryland donated the land for the purpose of creating the seat of the federal government, Maryland must consent to its use for another purpose,” Smith wrote.
In a statement on the bill, McCormick argued that the Constitution is indeed on his side.
He said the Enclave Clause puts D.C.’s boundaries in Congress’ hands and gives no authority to retrocede territory back to the states.
“The Make DC Square Act restores the District of Columbia as the Founders envisioned it,” he said.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger rebuked the idea of giving Arlington and Alexandria back:
“Inflation is skyrocketing, gas is close to $4, and Virginia families are feeling squeezed by high prices because of the reckless policies coming out of Washington. Republicans in Congress should be focused on contending with the high costs and economic chaos created by President Trump,” the spokesperson said.
Not all Virginia lawmakers agreed with Beyer, including Del. Wren Williams of Patrick County in the southern part of the commonwealth.
Williams, who is also an attorney, told Fox News Digital he “fully supports this act.”
“If we’re going to claim we support the constitution while our federal capital remains split over separate jurisdictions, how are we any better than those who allow millions of illegal aliens to flow across our borders as enemies to our nation?” he asked.
“We need to resolve the inconsistency. We gave that land to the district, and there are no takebacks.”
Williams said returning Arlington and Alexandria to Washington would begin a necessary “healing process” in Virginia to correct a longstanding divide, which other Republicans have lamented has left southside Virginia without a full voice in Richmond.
The Washington-based government-transparency group The Oversight Project has also focused at times on the Arlington boundary dispute.
Mike Howell, an attorney and the organization’s president, told Fox News Digital that “aggressive actions” need to be undertaken to return the District of Columbia to its proper confines.
He called for returning “D.C. back in its proper constitutional place and to return order and dignity to the Nation’s capital.”
“The Oversight Project has been pushing this issue on many fronts, particularly as it relates to President Trump’s authority to take control of the area and an out of control D.C. bar.”
Howell said his group is making headway in court and offered encouragement that McCormick’s bill would open the door to more action.
Given the heavily Democratic tilt of Beyer’s district, removing Arlington and Alexandria from Virginia would significantly alter the state’s political balance, potentially reshaping the state’s political balance after years of Democratic gains.
Democrats’ newly approved map relies heavily on Northern Virginia’s dense, reliably blue suburbs to anchor multiple districts, alongside other urban centers such as Richmond, Norfolk and Charlottesville — a structure that could be disrupted if those populations were no longer part of the state.
Such a shift could also ripple into state politics, where control of the legislature remains closely divided, though any downstream impact would depend on court challenges, implementation hurdles and whether the proposal gains traction in Congress.
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