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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the power to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved spending and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for ways to check his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled democratic bases: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to redraw maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and reduce the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and the state’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer