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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an five more seats in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are also emulating the state’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek ways to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly principled democratic grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and persuasion that is meant to define a functioning political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad wish for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that most Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and lessen the level of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn 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 Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer