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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the presidential office in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the administration asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated response to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and Washington create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as progressive voters respond with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on more purely principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in response, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that guarantee permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are take office, they will become a part of a body with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer