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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced dramatic biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove 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 congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the election is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to alter their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure long-term positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, war making or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist