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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from Congress too; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all bills must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the government just shuts down. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. 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 care who has a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for ways to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to alter their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials 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 impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer