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What, precisely, 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 vital congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from Congress as well; currently, under the office of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all legislation must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could assist California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed response to trends happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state’s House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following the state’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek methods to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly principled democratic grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first critique, that the measure will spur conservatives to redraw their respective maps in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it is illogical to say that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw maps that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other objection, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is harmful for politicians to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s additional five blue representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a institution with the authority to probe the president, to televise their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist