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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting 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 occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur the right to alter their respective maps in response, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad desire for a different country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic advance of Trump’s control and reduce the level 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 once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer