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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved spending and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a controlling share in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 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 liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an five more seats in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also emulating California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate react with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely ideological pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the process of deliberation, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their own districts in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of the president’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. Only once the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s additional Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer