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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. Currently, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should Americans care who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries 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 captured the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their own districts in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable 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 Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new blue representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist