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What, exactly, is the role of Congress? During another presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending seems to have mostly been taken away from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the power to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the ability to cancel congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; almost all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the filibuster. But when these don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many people are aware. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

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

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a belated reaction to trends occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed maps that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are likewise following the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The California initiative seems probable to be approved, as progressive voters respond with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian centralization of power and look for methods to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some opponents caution that the move could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do additional to design their maps so as to foreclose any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely principled democratic grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to define a functioning political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by the left’s measures when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other objection, in my view, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct country than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a better 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 manipulate targeted demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered uncontested. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and reduce the level of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s additional five blue house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to examine. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that authority to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure passes and the state’s new representatives are take office, they will become a member of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel associates of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer