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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

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

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

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are also emulating the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive voters respond with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some critics caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on more purely principled democratic bases: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and persuasion that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur the right to alter their own districts in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad wish for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the reality that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology 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 authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members 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 time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, 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 something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist