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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that power for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been taken away from Congress too; currently, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has also shifted to the executive, with the administration asserting the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate react with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be made to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that most Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer