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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital congressional authority, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted additional of that control for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following California’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to check his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a electoral area 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 genuinely representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant 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 objections on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their own districts in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of revenge to change maps that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is not good that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the autocratic advance of the president’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist