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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must now be crammed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, 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 control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, New York and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also following California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on more purely ideological democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective maps in response, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure permanent positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that most the left, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after 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 does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast 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.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist