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What, exactly, is the purpose 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 crucial legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans care who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive voters react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and seek ways to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on more purely ideological democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, argument and convincing that is meant to define a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to change maps that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s new representatives are take office, they will become a part of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist