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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated reaction to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate react with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for ways to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the action could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures 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 redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate targeted demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force members 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