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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

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

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate react with fear and frustration to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek ways to check his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their respective districts in response, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist