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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; almost all bills must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could assist California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated response to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, New York and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state measure is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an five more seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also emulating the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek methods to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on strictly ideological democratic grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their own districts in response, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to change maps that guarantee permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power 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 the state’s new representatives are take office, they will become a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer