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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since September 11; the president, in recent months, has asserted additional of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from Congress too; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has also shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state House representation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive voters respond with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for ways to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the autocratic creep of the president’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once 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, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer