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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second 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 right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for his administration, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all bills must now be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

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

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to trends occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced extreme biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their own districts in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw maps that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that most the left, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer