Ought Californians Cast Their Ballots to Redraw District Lines and Fight the Lone Star State's Fire with Similar Measures?

What, precisely, is the role of Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the government just shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

And yet Prop 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 upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems likely to be approved, as progressive voters react with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the measure on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to alter their own districts in response, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw maps that guarantee permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most the left, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s power and lessen the amount of suffering he is capable to cause is sad; it is a indication of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in practice have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s new representatives are take office, they will become a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates 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