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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky right of the presidential office in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

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

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to closely divided House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are also emulating the state’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the measure on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and persuasion that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical 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 in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad wish for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that most the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer