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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into 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 his administration, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which installed boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled democratic grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure permanent positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s control and reduce the level of suffering he is able to cause 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 once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist