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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all bills must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to trends happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely ideological democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of the president’s control and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new blue representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer