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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear somewhat 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 California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more seats in the state 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 likewise following California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a kind of melancholic desire for a different country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the autocratic advance of the president’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, war making or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer