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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has become a unclear right of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that power for his administration, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been taken away from Congress too; now, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has also shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also following the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure long-term positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is harmful for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and reduce the level of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and the state’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist