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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just shuts down. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also following California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of power and seek ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of the left, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to impede the autocratic creep of the president’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new blue representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer