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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky right of the presidential office in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that power for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; almost all legislation must currently be packed into spending packages, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just shuts down. At least, large sections of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could assist the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced extreme partisan gerrymandering 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 narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are also following California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of power and seek methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion 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 first critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that secure permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad desire for a different country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s control and reduce the level of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have legislative, military or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to investigate the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist