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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent 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, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed boundaries that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating the state’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw maps that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these actions have grown necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer