One of the most important Supreme Court decisions in a flurry of historic ones late last month was one that received little attention, but has potential to be the most lasting.

In deciding 5-4 to uphold the constitutionality of Arizona's new redistricting law, the court's majority added to a building national movement. Americans are trying to take their government back from elected representatives who had appropriated it for their own gain.

"Redistricting" isn't as sexy as gay marriage or Obamacare or even fair housing or three-strikes prison sentences, but it is literally the foundation upon which representative government is built. When people in a political subdivision elect someone to represent them in a larger governmental body — be it Congress, a Legislature or a city council — it's vitally important how the boundaries of the political subdivision are drawn.

That foundation has been crumbling because politicians of both parties have for centuries used the redistricting process to create safe seats for incumbents or particular political parties. It was 1812 when Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry gave his name to the district-rigging process known as "gerrymandering."

The reason why Congress has near the lowest approval ratings in U.S. history, and why the House in particular is completely broken, is that the partisan redistricting process (along with unlimited money in politics) has separated elected representatives from the people they are intended to serve.

Here's just one case in point:

On the very same day that the South Carolina Legislature was voting to remove the Confederate flag from the state Capitol grounds, the U.S. House was paralyzed (and still is) because the so-called conservative House members who control Speaker John Boehner actually convinced him to hold a vote that would protect the flying of that racist symbol in federal parks. Those House members run in primaries in which the most extreme sliver of the right wing of the Republican Party dominates the voter rolls. There's no balance, because that's how they (or their predecessors) had their minions in state legislatures draw districts.

The current redistricting process in most states is built around the concept of self-preservation, not good governance. It will stay that way unless enough states adopt independent redistricting commissions run by citizens before congressional and legislative boundaries are redrawn following the 2020 Census.

Gerrymandering happens in both red and blue states. It knows no party, though because Republicans have been ascendant at state levels in recent decades, the most recent abuses in the past decade are owned by the GOP.

In writing for the majority in the Arizona case, in which Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the four liberals on the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg drew deeply from the works of the Founding Fathers, who themselves were influenced by Enlightenment philosophers like John Locke.

"The people of Arizona turned to the initiative to curb the practice of gerrymandering and, thereby, to ensure that Members of Congress would have 'an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people,' " Justice Ginsburg wrote. "In so acting, Arizona voters sought to restore 'the core principle of republican government,' namely, 'that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.' "

Arizona voters were fed up with gerrymandering that protected incumbents and drove politicians to partisan extremes. They wanted districts that gave independent and moderate voters more choices. So they did what voters in California had done most recently before them. They took the process of drawing legislative boundaries away from the politicians. They developed rules that required citizen commissions to draw lines based mostly on population shifts and balance when remaking political maps every 10 years.

The court's decision in favor of good democracy was followed by a similar decision by the Florida Supreme Court that tossed out maps drawn up to favor incumbents. The maps ignored the wishes of voters, who had passed a constitutional amendment in 2010 saying, among other things: "No apportionment plan or individual district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent."

That amendment passed overwhelmingly because when given the chance, citizens gladly vote to take their government back from career politicians.

So what is the rest of the country waiting for?

In light of the Supreme Court's ruling in Arizona State Legislature vs. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, voters elsewhere should take matters into their own hands.

It's not enough to lament broken government. The people can fix it.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH