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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from Congress too; currently, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated reaction to trends happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise following California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive voters react with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on strictly ideological democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant 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 objections on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to change maps that secure long-term positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other objection, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that most Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his inner circle 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