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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled 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 ideological pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will spur the right to alter their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. Only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions 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.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer