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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are also following the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with concern and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely principled democratic grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize 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 merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change maps that guarantee long-term positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better world – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded 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 additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist