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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress too; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government 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 reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, New York and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate respond with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for methods to check his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some critics warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures 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 maps that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad wish 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 most the left, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the autocratic advance of the president’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is able to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist