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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all bills must now be crammed into spending packages, massive recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans care who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a special election next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State draw their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which implemented boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state’s House representation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are likewise emulating California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of power and look for methods to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to design their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of opposition party success. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the process of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial 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 claim that Republicans will be made to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, war making or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a member of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to force members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a news outlet columnist