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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into spending packages, massive perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer