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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration asserting the authority to abort legislatively approved spending and attempting to move the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could help California’s Proposition 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 the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to trends happening in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while big blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide the GOP an five more seats in the state congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following the state’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for ways to check his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy 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 Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that most the left, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. Only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist