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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been taken away from Congress too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

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

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced extreme biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following California’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological democratic grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee permanent seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of melancholic desire for a different nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and California’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer