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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. 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 the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from Congress too; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated reaction to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided House control and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the process of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy political system 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 initial argument, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in response, fails as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer