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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive voters respond with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their own districts in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change boundaries that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer