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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved spending and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. At present, the government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, 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 bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which installed maps that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning democratic process 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 spur conservatives to redraw their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is harmful for politicians to select their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something 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 mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist