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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the presidential office in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should Americans care who holds a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their maps via impartial 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 countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is meant to characterize a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their own maps in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad wish for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist