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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated reaction to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s House representation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with concern and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer