Ought California Voters Cast Their Ballots to Redistrict and Combat Texas's Fire with Fire?
What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.
The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all bills must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.
And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?
How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed
And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. 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 give Republicans an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)
The California initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.
It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.
The second critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that most Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is harmful for politicians to select their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to impede the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and reduce the level of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.
If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s new representatives are take office, they will become a member of a institution with the power to investigate Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.
The columnist is a Guardian US columnist
