🔗 Share this article

What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from Congress too; currently, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which installed maps that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and anger to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without 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 additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to impede the autocratic advance of the president’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer