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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the power of dissenting views is muted, and that the process of deliberation, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that the measure will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure permanent positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and reduce the level of suffering he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. Only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist