For some years now, District of Columbia officials have bemoaned our lack of full representation in the House of Representatives and used our license plates to advertise the status of District residents as subjects of “taxation without representation.”

A proposal to grant the District a full vote in the House has passed the House and the Senate government affairs committees, and a full Senate vote is scheduled for July. President Bush threatens to veto the measure if it passes. But the congressmen promoting it are overlooking a radical and vastly superior alternative: giving the bulk of the District back to Maryland, just as Congress returned Alexandria and Arlington to Virginia in 1846.