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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state congressional delegation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and anger to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from debate. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely ideological democratic bases: a electoral area 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 representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their respective districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other objection, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a strategic difference about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a better world – in the reality that most the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a institution 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 something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist