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What, exactly, 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 crucial legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all bills must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

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

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

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly designed as a response 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 five more positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also emulating California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory pattern in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly ideological democratic bases: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the result of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke the right to alter their own districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other objection, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer