Ought Californians Vote to Redraw District Lines and Fight the Lone Star State's Fire with Fire?

What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all bills must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated reaction to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate react with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of power and seek methods to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the result of the election is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that most the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist