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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to redraw maps that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, 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, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and lessen the level of harm he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a institution with the power to investigate the president, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist