Ought Californians Cast Their Ballots to Redistrict and Fight Texas's Fire with Fire?
What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.
The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from Congress as well; currently, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency keeps on humming along.
And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?
How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could help California’s Proposition 50 succeed
And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an five more seats in the state’s House representation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are also following California’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)
The California initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate respond with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the proposal on more purely principled democratic grounds: a district 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 genuinely democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.
It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their own districts in response, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.
The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.
If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
