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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been stripped from Congress too; currently, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated reaction to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are also emulating California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to alter their respective districts in response, fails as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the power to investigate the president, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist