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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from Congress too; now, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

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

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state’s House representation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are also following the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the proposal on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is never really 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, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the autocratic creep of the president’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist