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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is meant to characterize a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will spur conservatives to redraw their respective maps in response, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the autocratic 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 a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a institution with the authority to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist