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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has also shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans care who has a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state’s House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their own districts in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that most the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to impede the autocratic advance of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer