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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating California’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek methods to check his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their own districts in response, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only once the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in practice have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings 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 conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist