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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; almost all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

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 special election in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state 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 boundaries that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state’s House representation next year; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek methods to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on more purely principled democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke the right to alter their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change maps that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the autocratic creep of the president’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer