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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate respond with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in response, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change maps that secure permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – 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 situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist