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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been stripped from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also emulating California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on more purely ideological pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to redraw their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better world – in the reality that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s control and reduce the level of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist