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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the federal 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 operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric 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 more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated response to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate respond with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for methods to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a electoral area 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 representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in response, fails as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change maps that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: 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 second objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that most the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something 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 the legislative branch fails to in reality have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that Congress continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist