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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the office of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the authority to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, either; almost all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the federal government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem rather irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric could help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic biased redistricting while big Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which installed maps that will provide the GOP an additional five seats in the state House representation next year; similar boundary changes are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also following California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with concern and anger to the president’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and look for ways to check his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the measure on more purely principled democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a manner that the result of the election is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that the measure will provoke conservatives to alter their own maps in retaliation, fails as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that the GOP will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of retaliation to redraw maps that guarantee permanent positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, 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 constituents, rather than the reverse; it is negative that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and lessen the level of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and California’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a body with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer