🔗 Share this article

What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been taken away from Congress too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved spending and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into spending packages, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government just shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can seem rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following California’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for methods to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change boundaries that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still 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 power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer