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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, 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 as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to closely divided House control and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and seek methods to check his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to redraw maps that guarantee permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad wish for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the world that most Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and reduce the level of suffering he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something 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 fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist