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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has asserted additional of that power for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the 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 issue of control of the House and Senate can appear rather moot. Why should Americans care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may help the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good 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 autocratic creep of Trump’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the authority to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist