Ought Californians Vote to Redistrict and Combat Texas's Fire with Similar Measures?
What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.
The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from Congress too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.
And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans care who has a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?
How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed
And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)
The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some critics warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely ideological pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and convincing that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.
It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to change maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for years.
The other critique, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that most the left, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic advance of Trump’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after 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 Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the authority to probe the president, to televise their hearings into his actions 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.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
