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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been taken away from Congress too; currently, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may assist California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to trends happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating the state’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate respond with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek ways to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely principled democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a healthy political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in response, fails as a causal 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 doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer