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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 crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress too; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, 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 control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic centralization of power and seek methods to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will provoke conservatives to redraw their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for themselves: 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 objection, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the autocratic creep of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist