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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has also shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise following California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for methods to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a electoral area 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, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their own districts in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that most the left, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the autocratic creep of Trump’s power and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer