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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

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

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which installed maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are also following California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be limited 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 provoke the right to redraw their respective maps in response, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and reduce the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist