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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering 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 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 measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more positions in the state congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek methods to check his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their own maps in response, fails as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad desire for a different country than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have become necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state 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 fails to in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to probe the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer