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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, 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 don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could help California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced extreme biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and look for methods to check his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better world – in the world that most Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s control and reduce the level of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined 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 lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the authority to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer