Prof. Jake Grumbach is interviewed by The Seattle Times' David Gutman regarding his book, "Laboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Politics.”
"...Grumbach writes that states are no longer looking at each other to see what works and what doesn’t to improve the lives of their residents. Rather, he says, they’re looking to the national political parties for guidance on policy, ideology and objectives."
Prof. Grumbach says state politics should be about being more responsive to the voters but gerrymandering along party lines has allowed for more extremism: "...gerrymanders in states like Wisconsin and North Carolina, allowing, Grumbach said, state legislators to pass policy with an added level of insulation from voters. If legislators are gerrymandered into safe partisan districts, their electoral concerns can become less about passing policies that are too extreme, and more about how to appeal to the extremes of their party."
Please link here for the full article.