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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from Congress too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the power to appropriate government money has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all bills must now be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government just shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state 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 California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with concern and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of authority and seek methods to check his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn 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 genuinely representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to impede the autocratic creep of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist