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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an five more seats 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 the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the measure on strictly principled democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their merits. The first argument, that the measure will spur the right to alter their own districts in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be made to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions 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 retaliation to redraw maps that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is capable to cause is sad; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary 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 subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a institution with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist