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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also emulating the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive voters respond with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change maps that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, 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 nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most the left, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and reduce the level of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, war making or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist