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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has become a murky right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is supposed to define a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change maps that guarantee long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that the majority of the left, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted 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 rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer