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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, a great deal of the power to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

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

How ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the attention of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State create their district lines via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as progressive voters respond with fear and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek methods to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with blue 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. Different critics have critiqued the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth taking each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their own maps in retaliation, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to act in undemocratic 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 revenge to change maps that secure long-term seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The second objection, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the world that most Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered uncontested. That these actions have become necessary in order to slow the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is able to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been won that we can lament what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to force members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist