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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress too; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government just shuts down. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a majority in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state House representation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic centralization of power and seek methods to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory pattern in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the power of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and persuasion that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a logical 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 without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of melancholic desire for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist