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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals 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 the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some critics caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly principled democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that the measure will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad desire for a different country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the autocratic creep of the president’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have legislative, war making or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer