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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 initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; almost all bills must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 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 nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state’s House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate react with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the process of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The first argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective districts in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that guarantee permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the autocratic advance of the president’s power and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer