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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive voters respond with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and seek ways to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that secure permanent seats 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 a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted demographics; it is harmful for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and reduce the amount of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic representatives 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 examine. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist