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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from Congress as well; currently, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can appear rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state House representation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek ways to restrain his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they say, 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 debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their own districts in response, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the autocratic advance of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be sent 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 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer