DC statehood requires constitutional amendment?

[hlthe2b]

2. WAPO: looks at this issue in depth (short answer R's claim so, but an alternative exists)

Could D.C. become a state? Explaining the hurdles to statehood.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/08/washington-dc-statehood-faq/
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Seven months after the House of Representatives passed a D.C. statehood bill for the first time, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) says the unprecedented assault on the U.S. Capitol adds to the urgency of the cause: D.C. residents, she said, risked their lives on Jan. 6 to defend a Congress that affords them no voting representation.

But D.C. statehood still faces a number of high hurdles, not only in the narrowly divided Senate but in public opinion. A 2019 Gallup poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans opposed D.C. statehood. Last year, statehood advocates launched a campaign to introduce the nation to everyday residents of their country’s capital, arguing that perhaps the nation doesn’t know enough about the people who live in the District to have an informed position about making it a state. --snip--

Washington, D.C.’s founding is enshrined in the Constitution, which provides that the District — “not exceeding 10 Miles square” — would “become the Seat of the Government of the United States.” For a brief period after the city’s creation in 1790, residents enjoyed voting rights and were allowed to cast ballots as residents of Maryland or Virginia. But those rights ended shortly after Congress moved into town and the new Capitol in 1800 and passed the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801. The act stripped D.C. residents of their rights to vote in all federal elections, including for president, and gave Congress oversight of the city.

The District was not afforded presidential electors until the passage of the 23rd Amendment in 1961; its residents didn’t get a nonvoting delegate in the House until 1970. --snip--

Those opposed to making D.C. a state have argued that statehood for D.C. can’t happen without a constitutional amendment. They say the founders intended the entire District to serve as the seat of the federal government, not as a state. But legislation put forth by nonvoting Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) every year since 1991 would not eliminate the “seat of government” that the Constitution calls for. Instead, H.R. 51 would shrink the national capital to a small complex of federal buildings, while allowing the rest of the District to become a state.

Proponents of statehood argue that this plan preserves the federal enclave — whose only requirement is that it can’t exceed 10 square miles — and escapes the need for a constitutional amendment.

Outstanding questions remain over what would happen to the three electoral college votes currently afforded to the District when it becomes a smaller federal enclave. Some have wondered whether the 23rd Amendment would have to be repealed so that the few residents of the federal enclave — namely, those residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — don’t retain them.

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