Katherine Gehl, founder of Democracy Found
Katherine Gehl: 'Our political problems aren’t attributable to a single cause, but rather to a failure of the nature of political competition.'
As a gridlocked Congress lurched toward a government shutdown last week, five Wisconsin legislators — three Republicans and two Democrats — are again asking their peers to join them in finding a new way to elect the state’s two U.S. senators and eight House members.
The five — Republican Reps. Tony Kurtz and Ron Tusler and Democratic Rep. Daniel Riemer, and Republican Sens. Jesse James and Democratic Jeff Smith — said it’s time Wisconsin adopted the Final Five system of electing members of Congress.
States control how their Washington, D.C., lawmakers are elected — and the current system doesn’t work, the five said.
Asking for cosponsors of a bill that got 22 supporters last session, but never got beyond a public hearing, the five legislators said the changes Final Five would address include addressing the “root cause, systemic issues in our electoral system through a free-market politics approach; giving [Washington] legislators the freedom and incentive to solve problems; mitigating against divisive primaries, allowing for more choice and more voice in the general election [and] ensuring winners have majority support.”
Tusler, an attorney and member of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, said in a Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) interview that “Washington is broken, and we have to do more to try to get Washington to be fixed. And I think this is one opportunity that we can do that.
“I think it will not solve all problems in D.C. Nothing will,” Tusler added. “But this is something that would be a step in the right direction."
Smith, the assistant Senate Democratic leader chimed in: “It's proven to be a motivator for the elected officials to be more open, to be listening to each other and to their voters and not be so partisan and extreme."
Alaska and Maine use Final Five Voting to elect federal and state legislators. The five Wisconsin legislators are proposing that change for only U.S. senators and House members.
One drawback of the plan is its complexity. It would create nonpartisan primaries for the U.S. Senate and House races with the names of all major and minor-party candidates and independents on the ballot. But only the five who get the most votes would advance to the general election.
In the general election, voters could rank their preferences — their first, second, third, fourth and fifth choices — or they could vote for just one candidate and not rank additional choices. They could also cast a ballot for a write-in candidate.
If no candidate gets a majority of votes for that office, there is an “instant runoff” that tabulates voters’ rankings of other candidates.
According to the Wisconsin Legislative Council, an “instant runoff” works this way: The name of the candidate receiving the least number of first-choice preferences is dropped, and the second-choice preferences of the voters who preferred that candidate, if any, are then added to the first-choice preferences for the other candidates.
The runoffs continue, eliminating fourth- and third-ranked candidates, until one candidate gets 50% of the combined first-choice and reallocated preferences.
Democracy Found, formed in Wisconsin by retired business executive Katherine Gehl, has been promoting Final Five Voting for years. Dozens of Wisconsin business, political and civic leaders support Democracy Found, including UW System President Jay Rothman and former Republican Congressman Reid Ribble.
“Our political problems aren’t attributable to a single cause, but rather to a failure of the nature of political competition,” Gehl says. “This is a systems problem requiring systems change.”
Gehl co-wrote a book, The Politics Industry, arguing for Final Five Voting.
The book’s forward was written by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, of Wisconsin, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, of Pennsylvania.
In that forward, Gallagher and Houlahan wrote of their frustrations — frustrations resurfaced by last week’s Congressional gridlock: “Why are we more often opponents than colleagues? Why are we collectively allergic to the compromise and teamwork required to do what Americans want and expect of their Congress? Why can’t we get big things done for the American people?
“Because the system is built to tear us apart. In American politics, winning isn’t winning unless the other side is losing, and losing badly. This shouldn’t be. And it doesn’t have to be.”
Other legislators have until Wednesday to join James, Tusler, Kurtz, Smith and Riemer as Final Five Voting cosponsors.
Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com.
