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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 power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky 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 his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must currently be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

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

In what way ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise following California’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with blue states’ attempts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on more purely ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument 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 worth taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that the measure will provoke the right to alter their respective districts in response, fails as a logical point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans 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 retaliation to redraw boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad desire for a different country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our values, and not required by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is harmful for politicians to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is not good that elections are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is able to cause is sad; it is a sign of how much we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s additional five blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In the coming years, 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 close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer