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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could help California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state House representation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also emulating the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the action 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 maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, 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 valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their respective districts in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the autocratic advance of the president’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer