Ought Californians Vote to Redraw District Lines and Combat the Lone Star State's Aggressive Tactics with Similar Measures?

What, exactly, is the role of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated response to trends occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the election is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their own maps in response, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change maps that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer