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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another Trump administration, 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 years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as California, New York and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological democratic bases: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that secure permanent positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer