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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a murky right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the ability to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all bills must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a delayed response to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are also following California’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with concern and frustration to the president’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some critics warn 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 draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the result of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their own maps in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change maps that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the world that most the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that Congress continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist