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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that power for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must now be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated response to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to be approved, as progressive voters react with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of power and look for ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be made 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 Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and lessen the level of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist