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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, much of the ability to appropriate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, huge perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they don’t – the government just ceases operations. At least, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has seized the attention of progressives across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long embraced extreme biased redistricting while big blue states such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will give Republicans an additional five positions in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate react with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for ways to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is created in such a manner 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, necessarily, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is meant to characterize a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their own maps in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ measures when they are already doing so without those steps. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of revenge to change maps that secure permanent seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, rather than the other way around; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the autocratic advance of Trump’s control and lessen the amount of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have declined from something more like a representative government. 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 transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, war making or budgetary power, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In the coming years, if Prop 50 is approved and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the power to probe Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not anything that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist