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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

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

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could assist California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split 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 response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate respond with fear and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some critics caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the measure on more purely principled democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is muted, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their respective districts in response, does not hold up as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic 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 most Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist