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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress too; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration 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 resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could help 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 House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to closely divided House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state measure is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating California’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to change districts setting off a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the election is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is harmful for politicians to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the autocratic creep of the president’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist