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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted additional of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just shuts down. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek ways to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to alter their respective districts in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the world that the majority of the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the power to investigate the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer