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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been taken away from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans care who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are also emulating California’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of power and look for methods to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is meant to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur the right to alter their own maps in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that secure permanent positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and lessen the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, war making or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist