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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has become a unclear right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; almost all bills must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

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

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated response to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their own districts in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct 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, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist