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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should Americans care who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state measure is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and look for methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on more purely ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their own districts in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad wish for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the world that most the left, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist