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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has become a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government just shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should Americans care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state measure is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also emulating California’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their own districts in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that guarantee permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of the left, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only once the fight 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 legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist