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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted additional of that power for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of power and look for methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled democratic grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will spur conservatives to redraw their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the world that the majority of the left, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer