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

What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed response to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group 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 Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate react with concern and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological democratic bases: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to change maps that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of the left, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist