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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from Congress too; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could assist California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to trends occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for ways to check his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely principled democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument 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 merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to redraw their own maps in response, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are made noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer