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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government just shuts down. That is, large sections 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 no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who has a controlling share in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also following California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological democratic bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and persuasion that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to redraw their own maps in response, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to say that the GOP will be made to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the complete lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a kind of melancholic desire for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and lessen the level of suffering he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are required. Only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a body with the power to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer