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What, exactly, 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 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 himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the power to appropriate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; almost all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has 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 Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, New York and Washington create their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their own districts in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better world – in the reality that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist