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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

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

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

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to trends occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their own districts in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be made to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s control and reduce the amount of harm he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to holds 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 the measure passes and California’s additional Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to investigate the president, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer