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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government just 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 little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive voters react with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that guarantee long-term positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad 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 world that most the left, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the power to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer