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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive voters react with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a healthy political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their own districts in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical 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 US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that most the left, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far 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 successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel 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