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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has asserted additional of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

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

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted dramatic biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their maps via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also emulating California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of revenge to change maps that guarantee permanent seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of the president’s control and reduce the level of suffering he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet writer