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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could help California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated reaction to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also following California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and frustration to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek ways to check his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly principled democratic grounds: 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 truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in response, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw maps that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct country 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, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is able to cause 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 mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist