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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government shut down – 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 keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans care who holds a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological democratic 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 implies, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their respective maps in response, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to redraw 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 years.

The other objection, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the power to investigate Trump, to broadcast 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.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist