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What, precisely, 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 vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted additional of that power for his administration, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; virtually all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government just shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a majority in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging may help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an five more positions 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. (The left in Virginia are also emulating the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and seek ways to restrain 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 retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and convincing that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. 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 negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to impede the autocratic advance of the president’s control and reduce the level of suffering he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new blue representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer