Should Californians Vote to Redraw District Lines and Combat Texas's Fire with Similar Measures?

What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been stripped from Congress too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the administration asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all legislation must now be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should Americans care who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, 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 installed maps that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate respond with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to redraw 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, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a better world – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. Only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer