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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may assist California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five positions in the state House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also emulating the state’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change maps that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a sign of how much we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a institution with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist