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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

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

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional 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 liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as progressive voters respond with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on strictly principled democratic grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the process of debate, argument and convincing that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad wish for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer