Michael Parsons and Kevin Johnson in The Fulcrum:

The gerrymandering wars have laid bare the unique Achilles’ heel at the heart of our structural dysfunction: We give partisan institutions immense power over the rules of elections. No other peer democracy entrusts politicians with control over as many pieces of electoral machinery as the United States. Ignoring these major flaws has long left American democracy susceptible to authoritarian capture, and now the bill is coming due….

 One hidden cause of the current crisis is rising partisan manipulation of ballot measures, which has contributed significantly to the redistricting arms race over the past decade.

In three red states (Ohio, Missouri, and Utah), majorities backed strong, citizen-led anti-gerrymandering measures. But, in all three states, either Republican legislatures overrode the approved initiative, or Republican officials manipulated the ballot-measure process to deny the will of the voters. Had those voters’ wishes been respected, the constraints on gerrymandering facing blue and red states would be more closely balanced, the risk of an arms race would be contained, and Democrats would not be threatening to unwind two decades’ worth of progress toward fairer maps.”