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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the power to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, anyway; virtually all bills must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of the House and Senate can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may help the state of California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by voters in a special election next month, has seized the attention of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a delayed response to developments occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group 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 Texas, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an five more positions in the state House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in the Old Dominion are likewise following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with concern and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek ways to restrain his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the proposal on strictly principled democratic grounds: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a functioning political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their own maps in response, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The other critique, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most the left, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not required by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s new representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to probe Trump, to televise their investigations into his conduct and to compel associates 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 writer