Should California Voters Cast Their Ballots to Redistrict and Combat Texas's Fire with Fire?
What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.
And so the question of dominance of Congress can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans care who holds a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?
In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could 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 congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state House representation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)
The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as progressive voters react with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to define a functioning political system 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 critique, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their own districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.
The other objection, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the reality that most the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.
If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel associates 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 writer
