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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a unclear right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the 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 shut down all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state measure is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their own districts in response, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country 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 Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched 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 politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist