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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that power for his administration, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the administration asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

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

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a special election next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are also emulating the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn 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 democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that most Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still 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 passes and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a part of a body with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer