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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a murky right of the presidential office in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the office of budget chief, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into spending packages, huge perennial essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should Americans care who holds a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, New York and Washington create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic centralization of power and look for ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts setting off a retaliatory pattern in which red states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely ideological pro-democracy bases: 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 means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of debate, argument and convincing that is meant to define a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will spur the right to alter their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad desire for a different nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is harmful for politicians to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are rendered uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist