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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all bills must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just shuts down. At least, large sections of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic 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 asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans 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 the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also following California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate respond with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory 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 measure on strictly ideological democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is muted, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will spur the right to alter their respective districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure permanent positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad wish for a different country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of the president’s power and lessen the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the authority to probe the president, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer