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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government just shuts down. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

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

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create 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 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 recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are also following California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek ways to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some critics caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, 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, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic 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 incentive of revenge to change maps that secure long-term positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer