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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

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, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some critics warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, argument and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad desire for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. Only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that Congress continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist