I've been flummoxed by the legislature's abdication of power for awhile now too, but your post brought a disturbing idea into my head. What if this abdication actually _is_ the will of the people? From my limited exposure it seems that the only people who communicate with their legislators are the most polarized constituents who would demand obstruction.But you do point out a significant problem, regarding polarized constituents. More than just communication, it's usually the most polarized members of a party who take part in the primaries. This has the effect of dragging politics towards the extremes, rather than the center, and makes cooperation between parties essentially impossible.
Removing first past the post, through ranked choice or some other mathematically superior method of handling elections, would do a lot to correct that.