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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for his administration, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise following California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, 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 objections on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will provoke the right to alter their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is harmful for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet writer