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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all bills must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should Americans care who has a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and frustration to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and look for methods to check his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that most Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and reduce the level of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist