Should California Voters Vote 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 is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.
The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency keeps on humming along.
And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem rather moot. Why should Americans care who holds a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?
How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help California’s Proposition 50 prevail
And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give the GOP an additional five seats in the state’s House representation next year; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)
The California measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.
It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will spur conservatives to redraw their own maps in response, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.
The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.
If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer