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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can appear rather irrelevant. Why should Americans care who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to trends happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for ways to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some critics caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological democratic bases: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the result of the election is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy political system 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 the right to redraw their respective districts in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that most the left, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer