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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

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

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also following California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with fear and frustration to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and look for ways to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is meant to characterize a healthy political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change maps that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the world that the majority of the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist