What does the evidence actually show about ranked choice voting, women’s representation, and democratic reform? This week’s Weekend Reading looks back at the research, real-world outcomes, and lessons shaping what comes next.
Over the last year, there has been a persistent undercurrent in conversations with friends, colleagues, and readers — a quiet heaviness about the state of our democracy, paired with a sincere question beneath it: how do we build something better from here? When so much is at stake, it’s vital to look for strategies grounded in evidence that can protect and strengthen the systems we rely on.
Any reform that challenges the status quo invites scrutiny. What’s important, though, is that we look past the noise and return to what we can see and measure. Ranked choice voting isn’t a cure-all, but it is a proven tool, and one that has already helped make elections more representative, more competitive, and more reflective of the communities they serve.
What’s often missing from these discussions is a sense of scale. The United States has more than half a million elected offices, and the vast majority of them are local and nonpartisan. These are the races that shape daily life — city councils, school boards, county offices — and they are precisely where ranked choice voting works best. In these elections, RCV gives voters more meaningful choices, reduces the spoiler effect, and creates space for multiple qualified candidates to compete. For women in particular, that design matters. In places that use ranked choice voting, women run and win at higher rates, not because the system favors any one group, but because it lowers barriers, gives voters more power, and rewards collaboration over division.
At the same time, our democracy is not one-size-fits-all. There are places, especially legislative bodies meant to represent broad and diverse constituencies, where proportional outcomes matter deeply. That’s where proportional ranked choice voting builds on the same foundation, helping governing bodies more closely resemble the people they serve. The question isn’t whether one reform is “better” than another, but how to apply each tool where it does the most good.
Ranked choice voting works best when paired thoughtfully with other reforms and used where it fits — single-winner RCV for the vast majority of local, nonpartisan elections, and proportional RCV where fair representation truly requires it. Together, these tools help defang gerrymandering, encourage collaboration, reduce negative campaigning, and restore legitimacy to institutions that too many people no longer trust.
This week’s Weekend Reading opens with a segment closely examining how ranked choice voting is discussed, and sometimes misrepresented, and contrasts those narratives with what decades of research and real elections actually show. My hope is that it helps clear away some of the fog, grounds us in facts, and reminds us that a better democracy is something we build carefully, collectively, and by design.
As we head into the weekend and toward Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I’m reminded of his insistence that democracy is not self-executing; that it requires both moral clarity and structural change to live up to its promise. The work of strengthening our electoral systems is part of that unfinished project, and it asks us to tell the truth about what works, to stay rooted in evidence, and to keep widening the circle of who is able to lead.
Martin Luther King Jr & Coretta Scott King, painted by Melanie Humble
Milestones: Hattie Wyatt Caraway of Arkansas became the 1st woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate (1932); California Savings and Loan Assoc. v. Guerra decision upheld FEHA, requiring employers to provide leave and reinstatement for pregnant employees (1987); Joan Finney, 1st woman to defeat an incumbent Governor (1975); Lurleen Wallace became the 1st woman Governor of Alabama (1967); Anna Elizabeth Dickson, Quaker orator, became the first woman to address the U.S. Congress (1864); Miriam A. Ferguson became the 1st woman Governor of Texas (1933); and Christine Todd Whitman became the 1st woman Governor of New Jersey (1994).
Birthdays for notable women: Jenny Broome; Kathleen Nicholson Paulmier; Carolyn Lerner; Julia Louis-Dreyfus; Katherine Russell, Dean at the University of Maryland; Michelle Wu, Mayor of Boston; Alexa Aviles, NYC Councilwoman; Regina King, actress and activist; Catharine Mouquin Weiss, civic activist and past president of the Buffalo branch of American Association of University Women; Michele Jawando, SVP for Omidyar Network; Michelle Obama, Former First Lady; Fatima Goss Graves, CEO of the National Women’s Law Center; Yordanos Eyoel, CEO of Keseb.
In Memoriam: Claudette Colvin
Claudette Colvin. Painting by Melanie Humble.
This week, we pause to honor the life and legacy of Claudette Colvin, a voting rights activist who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery public bus in 1955. Colvin died this week at the age of 86. Here is an excerpt from her obituary in The New York Times:
“Claudette Colvin, whose refusal in 1955 to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Ala., came months before it was overshadowed by a similar act of resistance in the same city by Rosa Parks, a historic moment that helped galvanize the civil rights movement, died on Tuesday in Texas. She was 86.
As a teenager in Alabama, Ms. Colvin went on to become a star witness in a landmark anti-segregation lawsuit whose successful outcome was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court.
She was just 15 when she boarded a Montgomery city bus on March 2, 1955. The seating was segregated, with Black riders forced to the back, and if the white section filled up, the driver could order Black riders to give up their seats if they were in the rows known as “no man’s land,” between the two sections.”
In December, RepresentWomen reflected on Colvin’s story in Ms. Magazine, exploring how women’s leadership, especially young women’s and Black women’s leadership, is so often hidden in plain sight. Her courage, alongside that of Rosa Parks and so many others, reminds us that movements are built by many hands, not just the names history chooses to remember.
Honoring Claudette Colvin means recommitting to the work she helped make possible: building systems where women can lead, serve, and shape the future without needing extraordinary bravery just to participate.
To learn more about her life and legacy, we invite you to listen to this NPR segment.
When Research Meets Reality: What Minnesota’s Elections Reveal About Women’s Representation Under RCV
A new piece from DemocracySOS takes a close look at how ranked choice voting has been mischaracterized in recent academic and media narratives, and why those claims unravel when measured against real election outcomes.
In “Shaky political ‘science’ in Minnesota,” authors Steven Hill and Paul Haughey examine a 2023 study from the University of Minnesota that has been repeatedly cited by opponents of ranked choice voting. After reviewing more than 40 studies in their broader report, Hill and Haughey describe this particular paper as “one of the most error-prone” they encountered — relying heavily on cherry-picked citations, simulated elections, and surveys disconnected from how voters actually behave in real contests.
Most striking is how the study’s conclusions diverge from Minnesota’s lived experience. Minnesota has one of the longest and most robust track records of ranked choice voting (RCV) in the country. Both Minneapolis and St. Paul have used RCV for decades, producing dozens of elections that offer observable, measurable outcomes, not hypotheticals.
Yet as Hill and Haughey point out, the criticized study largely ignored those elections, writing:
“There have been dozens of RCV elections in Minnesota to actually study for real-world impacts on polarization. Instead, Jacobs’s conclusions relied in part on two studies of dubious credibility with no data from actual elections.”
When real data is examined, a very different and deeply consequential picture emerges, not only for RCV but also for women’s representation and diversity.
As Hill and Haughey outline:
“Ten years after Jacobs’s 2013 op-ed, as he was publishing the study that our paper analyzed about the impacts of RCV, with his warning that it may hurt diversity, Minneapolis voters in the 2023 local elections used RCV to elect candidates of color to nine out of 13 (69%) city council seats, including Blacks, Latino, Muslim and Somali elected officials, and women to eight out of 13 (62%) seats. In the 2021 elections, women candidates won a majority of seats, candidates of color won 62%, and Minneapolis enjoyed its highest voter turnout in local elections in 45 years. An exit poll found that 88% of voters found RCV easy to use, and 76% liked and wanted to continue using RCV.”
In St. Paul, the pattern is even more pronounced. Following the adoption of ranked choice voting, voters elected the city’s first Black mayor in 2017. In 2023, St. Paul elected an all-women City Council, six of whom are women of color. This was a dramatic departure from earlier councils that included only one woman and one person of color.
In 2025, St. Paul elected the first woman mayor and another all-women council for the second consecutive time. In five of the seven wards, women defeated male challengers head-to-head in the final round. In the remaining two wards, races narrowed to women-only contests, despite men running in every race — meaning male candidates were eliminated earlier as voters’ rankings consolidated around women. Across the board, when voters were given a full choice, they chose women to lead.
One race in particular in St. Paul’s last election illustrates how RCV reveals, rather than distorts, voter preference. In Ward 1, an eight-candidate race initially narrowed to five men and one woman, with the other two women candidates being eliminated after the first and second rounds. This type of configuration in a plurality system often signals the end of a woman’s viability. Under RCV, however, that woman — Anika Brown — went on to win decisively with 63.5 percent of the vote after six rounds of tabulation. The only way to reach that outcome was through broad, cross-constituent support, built through second- and third-choice rankings across gender, ideological, and demographic lines.
These recent outcomes align with and reinforce the broader body of research cited by Hill and Haughey in their recent analysis of Minnesota’s RCV debates. As they note, several studies frequently cited to criticize RCV actually find the opposite of what they examined. One such study, Election Reform and Women’s Representation: Ranked Choice Voting in the U.S., found that women’s representation was 11 percentage points higher in California cities that used RCV than in comparable cities without it. Our own research confirms this trend, finding that in jurisdictions using RCV, women are 52 percent more likely to hold seats than in those without RCV.
For RepresentWomen, this evidence cannot be ignored or pushed aside. The Minnesota case reinforces what our research has consistently shown. As Hill and Haughey ultimately conclude, the problem is not ranked choice voting. It is what happens when flawed research is amplified without scrutiny. Minnesota’s elections offer a clear reminder that democracy works best when claims are tested against evidence, not ideology.
Strong Support for Proportional Ranked Choice Voting on Display at Los Angeles Hearing
Last week, RepresentWomen submitted written testimony and testified remotely before the Los Angeles Charter Commission in support of their efforts to implement proportional ranked choice voting and expand council seats in the city. While I did not speak during the commission hearing, I did attend virtually as a participant, and the remarks I heard from that evening left me both heartened and deeply encouraged. After decades of working on electoral reform, it is rare to witness a room so full of community members speaking so thoughtfully, passionately, and in unison about the need for change.
What moved me was not a singular speaker; it was the overwhelming, eloquent support for proportional ranked choice voting and single-winner RCV expressed throughout the hearing. The turnout was extraordinary, the public comment was deeply informed, and the enthusiasm for the reforms was unmistakable. At a time when so many people are searching for tangible, lasting ways to strengthen democracy, it was powerful — and for me, admittedly a bit emotional — to witness such a broad and genuine alignment around a reform that has long struggled to gain this level of public traction.
That momentum was made possible by years of careful, coalition-driven organizing. We owe a tremendous thank you to California Ranked Choice Voting, which has been leading the on-the-ground work in Los Angeles, and to organizer Marcela Miranda-Prieto, whose leadership helped bring together such a strong, values-aligned, and effective coalition. The care, preparation, and trust behind this effort were evident throughout the hearing, and they made a real difference in the room.
RepresentWomen was honored to contribute to that conversation through remote testimony delivered by our Communications Lead, Alana Persson, who grounded the discussion in what our research has consistently shown about ranked choice voting and women’s representation. As she shared:
"Across jurisdictions that use ranked choice voting, women hold 52 percent of elected seats — nearly twice the norm in places without RCV. That outcome is not theoretical. It reflects what happens when election rules remove vote-splitting and create space for more candidates to run and win.
The clearest large-scale example is New York City — the largest city in the country and the most comparable to Los Angeles in size and complexity.
Today, women hold 32 of 51 seats on the New York City Council, a supermajority. That council is also significantly more diverse than in previous decades. In fact, women of color now hold a majority of council seats, marking a historic shift in who holds political power in the city. Importantly, these outcomes did not emerge all at once. Prior to the implementation of ranked choice voting, women of color were consistently underrepresented on the council. Following the adoption of RCV, a record number of women of color were elected for the first time; a signal that the system change expanded opportunity, rather than concentrating it.
New York’s experience also illustrates a critical lesson: council expansion alone did not produce these outcomes. Expansion created the possibility of broader representation, but it was ranked choice voting that allowed those opportunities to translate into durable gains for women and women of color.
We see the same pattern in Portland, Oregon, where council expansion and proportional ranked choice voting were implemented together. Following Portland’s first PRCV election, women now hold half of the council seats, and four of the six women elected are women of color — making this the most representative council in the city’s history.
That distinction matters for Los Angeles.
LA is the second-largest city in the United States, yet its City Council remains significantly smaller than those of peer cities. Expanding the council is an important step — but without proportional ranked choice voting, expansion alone risks reproducing existing barriers to women’s representation and political power.”
RepresentWomen will continue to testify in support of this initiative, and we are prepared to return before another committee this weekend to stand alongside partners and help move this work forward. The energy in Los Angeles last week was a powerful reminder that people are ready not just to debate reform, but to build it together.
Trailblazing Washington State Legislation to Make Service Safer
With Representative Liz Berry (WA) and State Senator Michelle Hinchey (NY) at the Reykjavik Global Forum
Washington state representative Liz Berry, a RepresentWomen thought partner, has introduced trailblazing legislation in Washington State. RepresentWomen proudly testified in support of this legislation aimed at addressing political violence, an issue that is increasingly shaping who is willing and able to serve in public life.
The bill responds to a growing reality across the country: participation in democracy now too often comes with personal risk, including harassment, doxxing, threats to homes and families, and online abuse. These risks are not evenly distributed and carry particularly high costs for women and candidates from historically underrepresented communities.
Alana Persson testified on behalf of RepresentWomen, grounding our support for the bill in more than a decade of research on how political systems shape who runs, who stays, and who leads safely and sustainably. From a women’s representation perspective, safety is not a peripheral concern — it is a gatekeeping factor. When threats are normalized or protections are inconsistent, the leadership pipeline narrows not because of a lack of talent or ambition but because the rules do not adequately support participation.
RepresentWomen also connected members of our broader network to testify, including Dr. Hanah Stiverson of Human Rights First, who recently contributed to our latest piece, “Online Violence Against Black Women is a Systems Failure and a Threat to Democracy.” Her testimony underscored how outdated legal frameworks threaten safety and push people, especially women, out of political life, thereby weakening democracy itself.
Additionally, Eveline Dowling of Expand Democracy was also prepared to testify before this committee. She wrote about the bill in The Expand Democracy Three:
“This week, Washington state lawmakers began deliberations on a sweeping bill aimed at protecting elected officials, candidates, election workers, and criminal justice participants from escalating threats and political violence. The legislation responds to the growing reality across the country that participation in public service increasingly comes with personal risk, like harassment, doxxing and threats at homes and public events. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Liz Berry, who has been outspoken about the need to address political violence as an issue that affects who is willing and able to serve. By strengthening both legal protections and practical security options, the bill seeks to lower the personal cost of democratic participation and ensure that fear does not drive people out of public life.
Last summer, we invited Rep. Berry and a Vote Mama leader to discuss this issue and the steps toward a national network of pro-democracy leaders. Their proposals were among the ideas that received the strongest support from the national network, underscoring both the levels of concern about the problem and the value of taking action.
Among its provisions, the bill would make harassment of elected officials a felony, expand access to Washington’s Address Confidentiality Program, and allow residential addresses to be redacted from public records, campaign finance filings, voter registration records, and property documents. It also authorizes state and legislative security assessments, creates new funding mechanisms for personal security measures, and clarifies that campaign and legislative funds may be used to cover proportional safety expenses.”
Why to Avoid Narcissistic Leaders - and Elect More Women
Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern. Source: South China Morning Post
Adam Grant wrote this exceptionally important guest essay in the New York Times on “why we fall for narcissistic leaders.” He provides evidence for an ongoing point from this column: not every woman will be a great leader, but women in elected office are more likely to listen, learn, and build consensus. Here’s a long excerpt:
“A little grandiosity can be conducive to big, disruptive ideas, but the evidence is abundant that people with high levels of narcissism make for worse leaders. To advance their own interests, they’re more willing to manipulate others, cut corners and even break laws….
Wise leaders balance confidence with humility. They’re secure enough in their strengths to acknowledge their weaknesses and learn from their critics. Whereas narcissists covet leadership roles, humble leaders are often reluctant to assume the mantle. It may not be a coincidence that George Washington had to be coaxed and cajoled into becoming the first U.S. president and that he refused a third term.
One way to get more humble leaders into power is to change the default. Instead of expecting people to elbow their way into leadership, we should consider all who are qualified unless they opt out. There’s evidence that this simple shift is enough to reduce the gender gap in promotions, which would have the additional benefit of lowering the number of narcissists in high positions, since women are less likely to be narcissists and psychopaths — and more likely to prioritize the collective good.
Countries with more female legislators are less likely to go to war, and peace agreements involving women are 35 percent more likely to last at least 15 years. In the early stages of the pandemic, countries and U.S. states led by women had lower Covid-19 fatality rates, in part because they did a better job showing both confidence in their plans and empathy for people’s pain. And organizational psychologists have found that when male leaders are stressed, they’re more likely to be hostile and abusive…
The responsibility of leadership is too important to entrust to arrogant people. Narcissistic leaders deny their weaknesses and make themselves weaker. Humble leaders admit their weaknesses and make themselves stronger. Great leaders overcome their weaknesses and make us all better.”
Fairly Elected Portland City Council Reaches Important Compromise
Portland’s city council. Source: KGW.
Electing more representative legislatures brings more diverse voices to the table - and makes it less straightforward than "majority gets all” systems to get things done. But as I’ve learned in my Quaker tradition, listening and learning can ultimately lead to better decisions. I was impressed to see that the city council in Portland (OR) took its time in selecting a new city council president, ultimately coming up with a compromise candidate who secured nine votes on the 12-member council that, as RepresentWomen reported on last year, was elected for the first time in 2024 with the proportional form of ranked choice voting. Here’s Portland Mercury coverage of the election of Jamie Dumphy:
“Dunphy’s election came after some 13 hours of deliberation over three days stretched across a grueling week for Portland leaders and community members.
City Council remained in a 6-6 tie through multiple meetings leading into Wednesday’s vote. A caucus of six progressive members didn’t budge on their steadfast support for Sameer Kanal until late Wednesday, when Kanal took himself out of the running and nominated Dunphy.
Dunphy represents District 1, which covers the city east of 82nd Avenue. The young government structure is intended to create a more representative government, including a broader geographic area that many argue has not been represented in local government as much as neighborhoods in the central city.
Before the vote, Dunphy was reluctant to accept the position, but said if elected he would use the role to distribute the power of the presidency rather than consolidate it.
“If the only way out of an entrenched 6-6 stalemate is for me to step into this role, then I'm willing, not happy, but willing to do this in service of this institution,” Dunphy said. “I do believe deeply in this new form of government, in ranked-choice voting in multi-member representative districts.”
Alaska’s Mary Peltola leads U.S. Senate Incumbent after Entering Race
Mary Peltola joined RepresentWomen for our Democracy Solutions Summit in 2024. Click here to listen to her panel.
Mary Peltola is running for U.S. Senate in Alaska, and polls show she has a strong chance of winning in November. She is one of the nation’s great champions of ranked choice voting and has participated in RepresentWomen events, discussing Alaska’s unique electoral system, which has contributed to women now making up half of Alaska’s House of Representatives.
The first Native Alaskan to represent the state in Congress, Peltola burst onto the national political scene in 2022 when she embodied the promise of Alaska’s “Top Four primary” system, which does a great job at crowdsourcing which candidate can earn majority support as a representative. In a large field to fill a U.S. House vacancy, the former state representative finished fourth in the opening round. Then, with her simple message of “Fish, Family and Freedom’, she defeated former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and the rest of the field in the special election and the general election – all without having to run a single negative ad in the states ranked choice voting contest. While she narrowly lost in 2024 amid a surge of Republican and Donald Trump votes, she has remained the state’s most popular politician. Here is Newsweek on her entry into the race:
"Peltola, who only recently announced her campaign for the Senate, raised $1.5 million in the first 24 hours of her bid. An Alaska Survey Research poll conducted January 8-11, ahead of Peltola’s official announcement, showed her leading Sullivan by more than 1.5 percentage points. The poll found that 48 percent of participants back Peltola to 46.4 percent for Sullivan. About 5.6 percent of participants are undecided.
The survey of 2,132 Alaska adults, 1,988 of whom are registered to vote, also found that Peltola has a more positive rating than Sullivan, 46 percent to 39 percent. In terms of his job approval rating, 36 percent of participants approve of his work while 44.5 percent disapprove. Nearly half of the poll’s participants, 46 percent, said they have no party affiliation, while 30 percent identify as Republican and 15.4 percent as Democrat."
The Fulcrum: “We Can’t Let Hegseth Win His War on Women”
Having the right to serve in the military is a great equalizer in a nation that devotes so many resources to the military and where voters value military service in a candidate’s record. What’s going on in the U.S. military right now is deeply disturbing. Here's more from former naval Lieutenant Commander Julie Roland in The Fulcrum:
“When Hegseth ordered all top brass to assemble in Quantico in September, he declared women could either meet male standards for combat roles or get cut. Strong message, except the military was already doing that, so Hegseth was either oblivious or ignoring decades of history. Confusion aside, it reaffirmed a goal Hegseth has made clear since his Fox News days, when he said, “I'm straight up saying we should not have women in combat roles.” Now, as of January 6th, the Pentagon is planning a six-month review of women in ground combat jobs. It may come as no surprise, but this thinly veiled anti-woman agenda has no tactical security advantage…
The military is indeed a difficult place to be a woman, but not because of the mission. Women are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by the enemy, and military leaders have repeatedly failed to live up to promises for reform. There are more unplanned pregnancies in the military than in the civilian world; since Dobbs, 40% of female servicemembers are now facing increased health risks simply by being stationed at one of the 100 bases within a state banning abortions. As a result, the likelihood of separation for women is 28% higher than for men. And these were the numbers before the Secretary of War made it harder to complain about assault, bias, and harassment. Alas, Hegseth may be deliberately making the military inhospitable to women to keep them from leadership. Starting with combat roles is strategic: if combat opportunities and physical strength become top metrics to measure leadership ability and competence, gatekeeping women from those roles keeps them subordinate.
The thing is, in the largest recruiting drought since the Vietnam War, the armed forces need women. Women represent a higher percentage of the recruitable population than men; back in 2018, the Navy’s then chief of personnel said of women: “That’s where the talent ishat’s where the talent is.” Plus, diversity is a critical force multiplier, while an overrepresentation of men has a negative effect on security policy initiatives. So why is Hegseth pursuing an agenda that weakens us? Beyond a blinding level of misogyny, it is unclear. Unless…if all the women left the military, then it could be whittled down to a horde of men indoctrinated in machismo and more loyal to specific leaders than the Constitution. Might that be the true goal?
As a nation, we need good people in uniform now more than ever. We must push on our legislators to not allow the military to continue on a war against women, but we must also uplift female servicemembers, and encourage male servicemembers to do the same. We can’t turn our backs–we have to have theirs.”
Foreign Affairs: “How to Save the Fight for Women’s Rights”
A 2025 protest against gender violence in Brazil. Source: Foreign Policy
Saskia Brechenmacher of the Carnegie Endowment is among the most important writers about women in politics globally. Here’s an excerpt from her new Foreign Affairs article How to Save the Fight for Women’s Rights: The Backlash Against Democracy Calls for New Strategies:
“Three decades after the Beijing Platform for Action, the groundbreaking UN declaration that affirmed that women’s rights are human rights, the global movement for gender equality and women’s empowerment is under strain. Adopted in 1995 and signed by 189 governments, the ambitious framework spurred a generation of legal reforms, gains in political representation, and consolidation of norms around gender equality. Today, however, that momentum is faltering. Although some countries continue to make steady progress, a UN report released in March 2025 found that one in four countries is experiencing a backlash against gender equality…
The strategies that were successful 30 years ago are no longer sufficient. Faced with a prolonged democratic recession, gridlocked international institutions, and a surge in conservative countermobilization, proponents of gender equality and their governmental supporters need a new template for action. Multilateral forums will remain an important arena for advancing progress and protecting existing achievements. But rather than being solely technical and elite-driven, reformers committed to the women’s rights agenda must expand their efforts, focusing on more collaboration at the local level, investing in initiatives that include men and boys, and connecting messaging about women’s empowerment to family well-being, community resilience, and economic stability….
An important priority should be to frame women’s rights and empowerment as central to strengthening families, communities, and societies. Over the past decade, some conservative actors have cast policies on sex education, reproductive rights, and protections against gender-based violence as threats to family values imposed by “radical feminists” or out-of-touch elites. The typical response from women’s rights advocates—countering with public statements citing scientific evidence or appealing to individual rights—often fails to resonate with broader publics for whom family, religion, and tradition are core reference points. Particularly in more socially conservative societies, campaigns that leverage women’s roles as caregivers and community leaders, highlighting the importance of gender equality to shared goals such as families’ economic security and children’s well-being, could help broaden support for practical reforms and depolarize public debates.”
Complex Politics in Venezuela Feature Two Women Leaders
Delcy Rodriguez. Source: New York Times.
It’s easy to question military solutions to Venezuela's longstanding challenges and autocratic rule. But rather than focus on the United States’ strongman tactics, I’m intrigued that the two most prominent political leaders in the nation are women: interim president Delcy Rodríguez and opposition leader and recent Nobel Prize winner María Corina Machado. Roriguez is less well-known, and I wanted to share a New York Times profile that includes this excerpt:
"Ms. Rodríguez, 56, faces an immense challenge. She must placate an American president who says the United States will run Venezuela for years to come, while trying to stabilize a cratering economy and consolidate control over governing institutions and power brokers in her inner circle imbued with hatred of U.S. meddling.
But those who know her say her capacity for hurling insults at the West, virtually a job requirement in Venezuela’s government until Mr. Maduro’s capture, is complemented by a pragmatic streak, making her a survivor of both internal purges and geopolitical shifts. er transformation from Mr. Maduro’s ideological provocateur into a straight-talking technocrat seemingly capable of working with Mr. Trump unspooled as she amassed power in recent years by leading an effort to pull Venezuela out of an economic crash marked by children dying of hunger….
Venezuela, in recent years, has achieved some of Latin America’s highest growth rates, albeit from extremely reduced levels. Mr. Correa, who still advises Ms. Rodríguez, attributed the increased stability to her work ethic and openness to technical assistance. “She is a workaholic, she never stops,” he said.
By the time of Mr. Maduro’s capture, the former leader had already delegated practically all economic matters to Ms. Rodríguez, who simultaneously held the posts of vice president, minister of finance and minister of petroleum.
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Thank you so much to everyone who has already signed up for our Ranked Choice Voting Day event — we’re deeply grateful for your enthusiasm and support!
If you haven’t yet registered, there’s still time to join us next Thursday, January 22, from 1-2 PM ET, when we’ll gather for a special conversation with the women and gender-diverse leaders making ranked choice voting possible in communities across the country. We’re especially excited to come together and learn from their leadership. You can register for this event here.