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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from Congress too; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear rather moot. Why should Americans care who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; 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 example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive voters respond with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek ways to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the result 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 power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a healthy political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that secure permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to impede the autocratic advance of the president’s control and reduce the amount of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to probe the president, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist