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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has become a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that power for his administration, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into spending packages, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, 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 state proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are also emulating California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely ideological pro-democracy bases: 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 truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first critique, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their own maps in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is harmful for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to impede the autocratic advance of the president’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist