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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government just shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are also following the state’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of power and seek ways to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some critics warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely ideological democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, 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 the GOP will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that secure long-term positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad wish for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that most Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members 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 time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist