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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The authority 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; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all bills must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans care who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring 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 district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate react with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of power and seek ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and persuasion that is meant to define a healthy political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first critique, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their own districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change maps that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is sad; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a body with the power to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer