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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has largely abolished itself?

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

And yet Proposition 50, California’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 across the country. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress 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 probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek methods to check his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on more purely ideological 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 implies, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and convincing that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change maps that secure 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 years.

The other objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad desire for a different country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most the left, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. Only after the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that Congress continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist