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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been stripped from Congress too; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

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

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are also emulating California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to check his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to draw their maps so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly principled democratic grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion 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 objections on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that guarantee permanent seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, 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 manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer