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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

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

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate react with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to check his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on more purely principled democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is meant to define a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their own maps in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change maps that guarantee permanent positions 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 other critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference 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 turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that most the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s control and lessen the level of harm he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. Only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist