What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.
The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.
And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?
How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help California’s Prop 50 prevail
And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)
The California initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic centralization of power and look for methods to check his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.
It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw maps that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.
The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort 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 world that most Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.
If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing 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 legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force 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 columnist
