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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to move the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control 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 rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of revenge to change maps that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad wish for a different country 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 Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer