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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be packed into spending packages, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

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

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

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a belated reaction to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their maps via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give the GOP an additional five seats in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating California’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own districts in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure long-term positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer