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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the power to appropriate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State create their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri 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 electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts 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 opposition party success. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee permanent seats for their party: they have been willing 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 strategic difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better world – in the world that most Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s power and lessen the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer