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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, massive recurring 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. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters react with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for methods to check his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely ideological democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up 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 in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, 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, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer