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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been stripped from Congress too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; almost all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem rather 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’ rhetoric may assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to developments happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, New York and Washington create their maps via impartial independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s House representation next year; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise emulating the state’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian centralization of authority and look for methods to check his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur the right to alter their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s power and lessen the level of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in reality have legislative, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer