What would it take for the United States to finally achieve gender-balanced governance? RepresentWomen founder and Executive Director Cynthia Richie Terrell has spent decades working on exactly that question, and in this conversation with CityBiz and The Fulcrum, she lays out the answer with clarity and urgency.
Cynthia traces her path from co-founding FairVote, the leading nonpartisan champion for electoral reform, to launching RepresentWomen — an organization built on the insight that voting systems alone aren't enough. Closing the gender gap in politics requires a twin-track strategy: reforming the structural rules that shape who can run and win, while simultaneously building the pipelines, support networks, and policy frameworks that help women serve and lead once they're in office.
The conversation covers a lot of ground. Cynthia reflects on Kamala Harris' historic candidacy and the ways high-profile women leaders energize women candidates and voters further down the ballot. She makes the case for local government — city councils, commissions, and appointed boards — as essential entry points for women building toward higher office. And she breaks down why ranked choice voting is such a powerful reform: it delivers majority winners, reduces the toxicity of winner-take-all campaigning, and allows multiple women to run in the same race without fear of splitting the vote.
Cynthia also previews RepresentWomen's Democracy Solutions Summit, a three-day virtual forum bringing together women leaders across the democracy reform ecosystem to focus exclusively on solutions, not just problems.
Her vision for twenty years from now? A democracy defined by collaboration, civility, and equity — one where the rules of the game finally reflect the full diversity of the people it's meant to serve. Getting there, she makes clear, requires intentional reform. Without systems change, progress will remain uneven and stalled.
