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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for his administration, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been stripped from Congress too; now, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw 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 Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and seek ways to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their own districts in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change boundaries that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the reality that most the left, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is able 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 once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist