For the longest time, it was also a very technical issue, of issue only to wonks. The general public simply didn't understand it well enough to recognize how pernicious an effect it really had, the news media (which is resolutely pro-status quo) wasn't going to make an issue of anything that would shift the balance of power away from the establishment, and activists realized that organizing against it was a fool's errand, since it would come down to petitioning the corrupt and asking them to give up their power and get nothing in return.
But as Leonard Cohen noted, there is a crack in everything - that's how the light gets in. And those cracks appeared in California. Starting with the special election that recalled Gray Davis, and installed Arnold Schwarzenegger (which put the kind of pro-reform candidate who would have never made it through the party machine into the Governors' Office) and the often-problematic-but-in-this-case-fantastic direct initiative system (which allows voters to route around obstructionist legislators) the change got through in the biggest state. The last election, which gave the GOP a huge majority in the House with a slight minority of the vote, showed people in unambiguous terms that something was very clearly wrong. And as California gets itself out from under this awful system, it'll do what it does best: drive change by demonstrating that another future is possible.
But as Leonard Cohen noted, there is a crack in everything - that's how the light gets in. And those cracks appeared in California. Starting with the special election that recalled Gray Davis, and installed Arnold Schwarzenegger (which put the kind of pro-reform candidate who would have never made it through the party machine into the Governors' Office) and the often-problematic-but-in-this-case-fantastic direct initiative system (which allows voters to route around obstructionist legislators) the change got through in the biggest state. The last election, which gave the GOP a huge majority in the House with a slight minority of the vote, showed people in unambiguous terms that something was very clearly wrong. And as California gets itself out from under this awful system, it'll do what it does best: drive change by demonstrating that another future is possible.