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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can appear rather irrelevant. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided House control and a long-term sense, by the left, 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 recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with concern and anger to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely ideological democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective districts in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s 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 maps that guarantee permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state 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 made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members 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 sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist