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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 congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has asserted additional of that control for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must now be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

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

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an five more seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created in such a manner that the result 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 power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change maps that secure permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic 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 accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that most the left, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. Only once 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 does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist