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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to move the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the government just shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can appear rather irrelevant. Why should Americans care who has a majority in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed boundaries that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive voters react with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological democratic grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad desire for a different country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. 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 is approved and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer