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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a murky right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise following California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to act in undemocratic 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 incentive of retaliation to change maps that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s power and lessen the level of harm he is capable to cause is sad; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, 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 the measure is approved and California’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the power to investigate the president, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates 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 writer