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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could assist California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry 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 proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with concern and anger to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some critics warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created 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 implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be made to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so without those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure permanent positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in practice have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the authority to investigate the president, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer