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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely principled democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy 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 argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to alter their own districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change maps that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that most the left, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the autocratic creep of the president’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist