WASHINGTON (CN) - Democratic lawmakers from Virginia and Washington, D.C., are rolling their eyes at a Republican-led bill that would return some land east of the Potomac River to the nation's capital, saying the measure would illegally strip hundreds of thousands of people of their right to vote in national elections.

The proposed bill, introduced Wednesday by Georgia Representative Rich McCormick, comes hot on the heels of Virginia voters passing a referendum to redraw the state's election maps in a way that likely favors Democrats.

If made law, the measure would undo an 1846 act of Congress that handed Arlington County and what is now the city of Alexandria, Virginia, back to the commonwealth in a process known as retrocession. The land was returned amid complaints that people living in areas that once belonged to Virginia had been disenfranchised when they were made D.C. residents - people who live in the nation's capital are unable to vote in national elections and have no voting representation in Congress.

As he unveiled his legislation in a video message Wednesday, McCormick argued the retrocession law formed the historical basis for what he called a "warped" political system in the state of Virginia.

"If you think about it, that's what caused all this consternation right now in the recent law that was passed," he said, referring to this week's referendum on state election maps. "What we want to do is make D.C. square again."

If McCormick's bill - aptly titled the "Make D.C. Square Again Act" - passes Congress, the capital city's footprint with Arlington County added would resemble a square.

But Democrats from Virginia and D.C. have slammed the proposed legislation, arguing among other things that the Georgia congressman's attempt to meddle in local politics was an exercise in futility.

"Rich McCormick's bill is an embarrassing legislative tantrum," said Virginia Representative Don Beyer. "It's also unconstitutional and a stupid waste of time."

Beyer pointed out that Virginians had voted democratically to change their state's election maps and argued Republicans in Congress had responded by attempting to deprive hundreds of thousands of them of their voting rights.

"Their contempt for voters is breathtaking," he added. "The American people want Congress to lower their prices and stop Trump's disastrous war. Instead, my Republican colleagues keep humiliating themselves for Trump."

Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.'s nonvoting member of Congress, told Courthouse News that McCormick's effort to reset the borders of the capital city without input from either Virginia or D.C. was "wholly unacceptable."

"Disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of Virginia residents by making them D.C. residents without their input violates the very principles I've fought for my entire career: home rule and consent of the governed," said Norton, adding that her Republican colleague was elected to represent Georgia and "not to redraw the borders of two jurisdictions he doesn't represent and whose residents cannot hold him accountable by voting him out."

A spokesperson for McCormick did not return a request for comment. But in a statement alongside his proposed bill the lawmaker argued that the Constitution did not grant Congress the authority to carve up the capital city as it did in the 1840s.

"Democrats have spent years manipulating maps and boundaries to rig elections," said McCormick. "The Make DC Square Again Act restores the original 10-mile-square district and ends the artificial advantage Virginia Democrats have recently gained from all the federal bureaucrats moving into Virginia."

The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the authority to exercise "exclusive legislation" over a district no larger than ten square miles that serves as the country's seat of government. That power was built out in the 1801 District of Columbia Organic Act which established Alexandria County - the land east of the Potomac River - as a distinct subset of the capital from the area across the river that is now D.C. proper.

McCormick's proposed legislation to undo the Virginia retrocession has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Virginia issued a ruling Wednesday blocking its redistricting effort. The state attorney general has said he will file an immediate appeal.

Source: Courthouse News Service