The root causes are money, gerrymandering, and the outrageous self-interest of elected officials. When money is involved it always has a corrupting influence, enough said. Gerrymandering has proven to be especially corrosive practice. It's purpose is to perpetuate incumbency, and one party control of a particular district. The self-interest of politicians; to always be re-elected is achieved.
Gerrymandering was originally intended to keep the opposition party from getting control of a particular house seat. But like any malignant cancer it has metastacised, and is beginning to destroy the cells of our democracy. We here this prognostication over and over from the political pundits; the politicians are worried about being contested in a primary.
The gerrymandering cancer as currently practiced, coupled with a politicians self-interest are producing one crisis after another in the house of representatives. We here these self-righteous politicians make their hollow claim that they are representing their constituents. That is a lie. Once elected, a politician is supposed to represent all the constituents within their district, but they don't.
A politicians that represented entire constituencies would be honestly deliberative. It would produce votes, over time, that represented the minority interests within their constituencies. That almost never happens. The reason it doesn't; that vote would be in conflict with their self-interest of being re-elected. These politicians do what is best for them before anything else, but swear an oath to put the interest of the country first. They start the job they were elected to do by putting a hand on the bible and lying.
The US congress has the power to control the gerrymandering. It actually has a simple fix, the US congress could require that all districts, to be acceptable as legitimate, must recieve the approval of at least forty-percent of the minority party. This would eliminate the most grotesque redrawing of districts immediately. Over time, fair district parity might be achieved forcing elected politicians to represent all those constituents within a district. How refreshing that would be.