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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the administration asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved spending and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the election is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a healthy political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to alter their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, 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 address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that most the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist