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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has become a unclear right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all bills must now be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more seats in the state’s House representation next year; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive voters react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change maps that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in practice 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 aspect that Congress continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist