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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear rather moot. Why should Americans care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging could assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic 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 required no any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to impede the autocratic advance of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist