Ought Californians Vote to Redraw District Lines and Combat Texas's Aggressive Tactics with Fire?

What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved spending and seeking to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are also following the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for ways to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw maps that guarantee permanent seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer