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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five seats in the state’s House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for ways to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure permanent seats for themselves: 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, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that most the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer