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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for his administration, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will provide Republicans an five more seats in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that secure permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of the president’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the power to investigate Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer