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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; almost all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for ways to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to change districts setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the election 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 voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their own districts in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the US 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 values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. 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 does not in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist