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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a belated reaction to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State create their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive voters respond with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek methods to check his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle 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 measure on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their own districts in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that secure permanent positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a better world – in the reality that most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that Congress continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist