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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that power for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric may help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as progressive voters respond with fear and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to redraw their respective maps in response, fails as a logical argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that secure permanent seats for themselves: 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 second objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, 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 targeted demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the authority to investigate the president, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer