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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted additional of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from Congress as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. Currently, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a special election next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an five more seats in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for ways to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is meant to define a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the autocratic advance of Trump’s control and reduce the level of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer