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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state House representation next year; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory pattern in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw maps that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of the president’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist