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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an additional five seats in the state’s House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate react with fear and frustration to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and look for methods to check his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the measure on more purely ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to alter their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other objection, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of melancholic wish for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of the left, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer