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What, exactly, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all bills must now be packed into spending packages, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, New York and Washington draw their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on more purely ideological democratic grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to alter their own districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any incentive of revenge to change maps that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad wish for a different country than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the world that the majority of the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; 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 suffering he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist