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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government just shuts down. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress 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 ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election next month, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur the right to alter their own districts in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change maps that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad wish for a different nation than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that Congress continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist