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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, New York and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following the state’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a district 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 implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad desire for a different country than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the world that most the left, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to slow the autocratic creep of the president’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer