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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed response to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their own maps in response, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change maps that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of melancholic wish for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better world – in the world that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the autocratic creep of the president’s control and reduce the level of harm he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist