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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; almost all bills must now be crammed into spending packages, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist 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 embraced by voters in a special election next month, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state measure is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and reduce the amount of harm he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new representatives are take office, they will become a part of a institution with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel members 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