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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away 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 defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

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

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election next month, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also emulating the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate respond with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their own maps in response, does not hold up as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most the left, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate 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 grown essential in order to impede the autocratic creep of the president’s control and reduce the amount of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer