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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been stripped from Congress as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just shuts down. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also following California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic centralization of power and seek ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict 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. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a healthy political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that secure permanent positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the world that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and reduce the level of suffering he is able to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist