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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the presidential office in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a special election next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive voters respond with concern and anger to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective maps in response, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that Congress continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the power to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer