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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in recent months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; almost all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate react with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic centralization of power and seek methods to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly principled democratic grounds: a electoral area 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 genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that the measure will provoke conservatives to redraw their own districts in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that secure permanent positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how much we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist