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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a murky right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress too; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has also shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is meant to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures 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 maps that secure permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – 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 politicians to select their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and lessen the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer