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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. Currently, the government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state House representation next year; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are also emulating the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and seek ways to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election 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 views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a better world – in the world that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to slow 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. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a institution with the authority to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer