Also the gerrymander

Here's a fun little cartoon that looks at the flood of ant-abortion laws coming out of state legislatures over the past few years despite overwhelming support for reproductive rights among a majority of the public.  

What the cartoon doesn't say, though, is that the reason this surge is allowed to occur despite its appeal to an extreme niche of the electorate is because 1) state legislative districts have been badly gerrymandered to protect extremist candidates and 2) extreme crusading like this helps these candidates raise money.

In other words, it's the same situation that allowed the shutdown to happen.  And, the way things are currently structured, its engineers (again, much like the Tea Partiers responsible for the shutdown) face no negative repercussions to speak of.