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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must now be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans care who has a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, New York and Washington draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also following California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with concern and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek ways to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to draw 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 say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and persuasion that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to change maps that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, 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 become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and reduce the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, 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 find themselves a member of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer