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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

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

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are also following California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for methods to check his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled democratic bases: 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 democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be made to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic 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 the left, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle 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