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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the power to allocate government money has also shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could assist the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely principled democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their own maps in response, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other objection, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist