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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration asserting the authority to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must now be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the federal government just shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many people are aware. Currently, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans care who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help the state of California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state House representation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to foreclose 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 way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change maps that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better world – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. Only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a part of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer