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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all bills must now be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a majority in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries 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 political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating California’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely ideological democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, argument and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad wish for a different nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the power to investigate the president, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist