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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky right of the presidential office in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from Congress too; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; almost all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated response to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation 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 lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for ways to check his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their own maps in response, does not hold up as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad wish for a different country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of the president’s control and reduce the level of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have legislative, war making or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power 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 the measure is approved and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist