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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the authority to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, anyway; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are also emulating California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on more purely principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to impede the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer