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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few 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 Congress as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be packed into spending packages, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the federal 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 humming along.

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

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide 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 liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be made to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind 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 most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations 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.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer