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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans care who has a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may assist the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated reaction to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are also following California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for methods to check his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some critics warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely ideological democratic bases: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different country than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and lessen the level of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a institution with the authority to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist