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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all legislation must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation next year; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to be approved, as progressive voters react with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on more purely ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in doubt, 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 procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries 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 a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the fight 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 lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and California’s new representatives are take office, they will become a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer