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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration asserting the authority to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

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 institution that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to trends occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is meant to characterize a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a institution with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist