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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for his administration, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and Washington create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state measure is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an five more seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following California’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek ways to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the process of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their own districts in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw maps that guarantee permanent 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 a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better world – in the reality that most the left, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the power to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer