Ought Californians Cast Their Ballots to Redraw District Lines and Combat Texas's Fire with Fire?

What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that power for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive voters respond with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw maps that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer