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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation next year; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek ways to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the measure on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that most the left, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to impede the autocratic creep of the president’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist