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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has become a murky right of the presidential office in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills 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, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated response to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and look for ways to check his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological democratic grounds: 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 truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington 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 politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer