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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted additional of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration asserting the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided House control and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate react with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the power to probe the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist