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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been taken away from Congress too; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed response to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long 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 resulted in 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 clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with concern and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some critics caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is not in doubt, they argue, 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 debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their own districts in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a institution with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist