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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky right of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that control for himself, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have largely been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and more and more, they don’t – the federal government just shuts down. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

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

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five more House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the attention of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a belated reaction to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic biased redistricting while large blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington create their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split House control and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following the state’s lead in attempting to alter districts.)

The state measure seems likely to pass, as progressive voters respond with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of authority and look for ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without debate. Some opponents caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to draw their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the result of the election is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize 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 merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will provoke the right to alter their respective districts in response, fails as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already doing so without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to redraw maps that guarantee permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, in my view, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the US has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal situation – in the world that most the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and reduce 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. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can lament what opposing it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent 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 era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will find themselves a part of a body with the authority to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist