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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 determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent 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 taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated response to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters react with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek methods to check his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the action could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely ideological pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting views is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of revenge to change maps that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted demographics; 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 measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and reduce the level of harm 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 fight against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional representatives 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 compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer