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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch 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 military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed response to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, 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 measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, 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 redraw their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other objection, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a different country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition 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 choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer