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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the power to appropriate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an additional five seats 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. (The left in Virginia are also emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems likely to be approved, as progressive voters respond with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for ways to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some critics caution that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their own maps in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better world – in the world that most the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist