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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky 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 military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be largely been stripped from the legislative branch too; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the power to appropriate federal funds has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; almost all legislation must now be crammed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of Congress can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans care who holds a majority in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is embraced by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends occurring in other states: GOP-led states have long adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state proposal is clearly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in Texas, which implemented maps that will give the GOP an additional five positions in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following the state’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The state measure seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to change districts setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections 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 say that the GOP will be made to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of revenge to change boundaries that secure permanent 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, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a better situation – in the reality that most the left, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and lessen the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. It is only once the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of stagnant government and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist