Four Lessons for Winning Transformative Change

This article by Rob Richie, published in Democracy SOS, highlights RepresentWomen's Cynthia Richie Terrell and the work of RepresentWomen.

This progress was only possible because of new allies. That’s Lesson #3: Build your coalition with win-win solutions.

Take Alaska’s Top 4 system FairVote first proposed in 2013. It shows what's possible when working toward a bigger coalition with an open mind. In 2010, California adopted the Top 2 primary. Third parties hated it, and I’d worked to open general elections. You can imagine my spirited conversations with California’s Top 2 advocates like Steve Peace and Dan Howle.

But I listened too. The idea of Top 4 flowed from wanting to work with Steve and Dan, not against them. So let’s open up primaries and general elections. Double the number of advancing candidates from two to four, then use RCV in November to uphold majority rule.

We modeled the idea, pushed it out, and got good responses. Thanks to the leadership of Katherine Gehl and advocacy prowess of the likes of Unite America and Scott Kendall, the rest is history.

Reform work is always better together. For me, that starts with my wife Cynthia Richie Terrell, who’s been the Ginger Rogers of our reform and parenting dance all these years. Her insights led me to focus on electoral reform, and she’s always been my closest confidant. She tolerated many a 7 pm dash to the post office, weekend calls with activists, and the ongoing rollercoaster of wins, setbacks, and budget shortfalls often covered with our credit card. Now she’s built RepresentWomen with an inspiring team that will help us all win.

Read the complete article here.