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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted additional of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed response to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an five more seats in the state congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following California’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with concern and anger to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek ways to check his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts setting off a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is meant to define a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens 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 own maps in response, does not hold up as a logical argument: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to impede the autocratic creep of Trump’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist