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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has asserted additional of that power for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration 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 reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a special election next month, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The first argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to redraw their own districts in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that most the left, 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 pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member 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 more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist