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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; virtually all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a majority in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to redraw their own maps in response, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to broadcast 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 writer