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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved spending and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all bills must currently be crammed 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 don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly principled democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that the measure will spur the right to alter their own districts in response, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change maps that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. Only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist