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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must now be crammed into spending packages, huge perennial essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ 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 Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed response to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State create their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek methods to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to impede the autocratic creep of the president’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer