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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; virtually all bills must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the government just shuts down. That is, large sections of the government do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following California’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on more purely ideological democratic bases: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the election is not in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is meant to characterize a functioning political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, instead of the reverse; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer