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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted additional of that control for his administration, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability 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 money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the government do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

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

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state measure is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to pass, as progressive electorate respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of power and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition 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 Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Others have questioned the measure on strictly principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is muted, and that the process of debate, argument and convincing that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own districts in response, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic shift, but a kind of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most the left, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is capable 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 required. Only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized 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 part of a institution with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist