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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been stripped from Congress too; currently, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following California’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The California measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for ways to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly ideological democratic bases: a electoral area 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 implies, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, argument and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change maps that guarantee long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most the left, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist