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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should Americans care who has a majority in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, New York and Washington draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts 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 questioned the proposal on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal point: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change maps that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad desire for a different country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast 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 anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist