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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all legislation must now be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long adopted dramatic biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise following California’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate react with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek methods to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly principled democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist