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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has asserted additional of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also emulating the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate react with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for methods to check his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be limited 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 spur conservatives to redraw their respective districts in response, does not hold up as a causal point: 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 in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. Only once the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our time of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the authority to probe the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer