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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could assist the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated response to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with concern and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, 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 democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will spur the right to alter their own districts in response, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and lessen the level of harm he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to force associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer