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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for his administration, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from Congress too; now, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the government just shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated response to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are also following the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive voters respond with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of suffering 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 necessary. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new representatives are take office, they will become a part of a institution with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer