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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the power to allocate government money has also shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist 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 Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to draw their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is meant to define a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad wish for a different nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the level of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution 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