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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging may help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a special election next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed response to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek ways to check his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly ideological democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a functioning political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that the measure will provoke the right to alter their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee permanent seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad desire for a different country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the autocratic advance of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist