If you need evidence of how gerrymandering is harmful to our democracy, look no further than the General Assembly’s latest budget fiasco, which deepened on Tuesday with Republican leaders in the House postponing preliminary votes on the party’s latest revenue plan.

With a budget crisis deepening by the day, some might argue that now’s not the time to take up this cause. We’re of the opposite opinion.

Now is exactly the right time to address this issue. Because we can (and do) reasonably argue that gerrymandering has contributed to the lacksadasical fiscal oversight and paucity of political will that has plagued Pennsylvania for the past several budget cycles.

How else can we explain a 203-member General Assembly that seems content to allow important fiscal questions — like how to pay for a state budget they approved nearly three months ago — to fester until they become crises?

How else can we explain a state House that felt it was appropriate to take a seven-week recess amid fiscal gridlock and the threat of yet another credit downgrade?

How else can we explain a state Legislature that was in the first place comfortable with passing a spending plan without an agreement on how to pay for it?

The simplest answer is that members don’t have any fear of repercussions from their irresponsible actions and inactions.

Why might that be? Again, the simplest answer is that they believe their positions are secure; that voters won’t boot them out of office.

And why, despite their terrible job performance, might legislators’ positions remain so secure?

Another simple answer: because their districts have been deliberately drawn to give them every available advantage come election time.

That’s gerrymandering, and these are the results: legislators who don’t fear challenges at the ballot box and don’t feel the need to engage in bipartisanship and compromise. When every election amounts to a test of ideological purity with constituencies that have been hand-picked by your party, what incentive is there to actually get anything done? In the current system, results don’t win elections; principles do.

It’s clear that the state’s current reapportionment process, which is controlled by the majority party, is broken and damaging to democracy both at the state and federal levels.

Right now Republicans are in power and should rightly be taking heat for exploiting reapportionment for political gain, but things were no better with Democrats at the helm.

Drawing voting districts should be a nonpartisan exercise, and the only way to achieve that result is to amend the Pennsylvania Constitution — a process that starts with a proposed reform bill winning passage in two consecutive legislative sessions.

Because the reform would take years, it’s imperative that the process begins now if we hope to have a new system in place for the next round of redistricting, which occurs every 10 years and is set to begin after the 2020 census.

An independent commission drawing congressional and legislative districts is the only way to move beyond this corrupt and damaging system, and put Pennsylvania back on the path to a productive and responsible state legislature.