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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning 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 critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their own districts in response, fails as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s 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 redraw maps that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a kind of melancholic desire for a different nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the autocratic advance of the president’s control and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and the state’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer