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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital congressional authority, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government just shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help the state of 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 next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a delayed response to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate respond with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a part of a body with the power to investigate the president, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer