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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government just shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar 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 following the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and anger 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 blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of revenge to change maps that guarantee long-term positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is 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 lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist