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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a murky right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just shuts down. At least, big parts 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 resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state House representation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and frustration to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is meant to define a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their own districts in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic 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 revenge to redraw maps that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that most Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and reduce the level of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic representatives 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 investigate. Even in our time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist