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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. 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 closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 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 in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also emulating California’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to alter their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent seats 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, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist