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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their maps via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to 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 countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give Republicans an five more seats 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. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following the state’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters react with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely principled democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a healthy political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur the right to alter their own districts in response, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that guarantee permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the autocratic creep of Trump’s power and reduce the level of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. 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 legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that Congress continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer