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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; almost all bills must now be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

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

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election next month, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of debate, argument 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 valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will provoke the right to alter their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad desire for a different country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s control and reduce the amount of suffering 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 necessary. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist