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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the presidential office in the years since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may help California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for methods to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the process of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their own districts in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a kind of melancholic desire for a different country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to impede the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to investigate the president, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist