Amid efforts to make the District the 51st state, a new candidate for D.C. delegate believes it should instead become Maryland’s 24th county.
David Krucoff, a real estate executive whose family is from D.C., filed to run last week against incumbent Eleanor Holmes Norton as an independent.
His plan is to see the district become Douglass County, Maryland, in honor of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who was born in Maryland. Krucoff’s No. 1 priority is to give D.C. residents voting representation in Congress.
“It’s a win for D.C., obviously,” he said. “We become citizens that are not second class, we become whole.”
Krucoff said that what he called a second retrocession — or giving the land known as the District, which was once a part of Maryland, back to the state — would leave the core of the nation’s capital around the White House as it is. In addition to representation, he said, the economic impact and the political boost for the Democratic state would be a major win.
“Why not grow your state and increase your population?” he said. “D.C. is gorgeous, it’s got great sports teams and it’s got a lot to offer.”
Norton’s bill to create the “State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth” went before the House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing last week, but Krucoff believes retrocession is the better way forward.
“The No. 1 job of the nonvoting delegate from the District of Columbia is to provide full representation or full voting rights for the residents, the constituents, which is us,” he said. “I’m running to succeed in that role, to fix this once and for all.”
Krucoff is still working to drum up major support but acknowledged this would be a long process. If elected, his goal is to see his plan play out by 2030.
