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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that power for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will provide the GOP an five more seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are also emulating California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek ways to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is meant to define a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur the right to alter their own districts in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that most the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of the president’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, war making or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are take office, they will become a part of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist