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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist 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 approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate react with fear and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for ways to check his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some critics warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly principled democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure long-term positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and reduce the level of harm he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s additional Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe the president, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer