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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats 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 budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just shuts down. That is, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, New York and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their own maps in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other objection, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist