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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been taken away 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 appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the 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 issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on strictly ideological democratic bases: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the result of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will spur the right to alter their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of revenge to change maps that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new blue representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist