Ought Californians Vote 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 is difficult to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.
The power of the purse seems to have mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal 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 issue of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?
How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail
And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more 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 progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)
The state measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive voters react with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.
It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to alter their own maps in response, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change boundaries that secure long-term positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.
The second critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.
If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
