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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The authority to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from Congress too; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all bills must currently be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging could assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s 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 Virginia are also following California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure 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 years.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy 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 situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our time of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to compel associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer