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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

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

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State create their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the election is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that the measure will spur the right to alter their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to redraw maps that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the level of harm he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have legislative, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a body with the power to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer