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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved spending and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

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

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated reaction to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also following California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek methods to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their own maps in response, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that most the left, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the autocratic creep of the president’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. Only once the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer