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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital congressional authority, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may assist the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise following California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to alter their respective districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change maps that secure permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that most Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of the president’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist