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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has become a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending seems to have largely been stripped from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and increasingly, they do not – the government simply shuts down. At least, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a belated response to developments occurring elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided House control and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly intended as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which implemented boundaries that will provide Republicans an five more positions in the state congressional delegation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s example in seeking to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive voters respond with concern and frustration to the president’s autocratic centralization of power and seek methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics caution that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy bases: a district that is created in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is meant to define a functioning democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The first argument, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee long-term positions for their party: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The other critique, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better situation – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is not good for politicians to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these measures have grown essential in order to impede the autocratic advance of Trump’s power and reduce the level of suffering he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how much we have declined from something more like a democracy. But they are required. It is only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in practice have legislative, war making or budgetary power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still holds is subpoena power, and the ability to examine. Even in our time of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and the state’s additional representatives are take office, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to investigate the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer