On February 4, 2020, NYU Washington, DC and Fair Vote will host an event on the Fair Representation Act. At a time when Americans increasingly feel like elections are broken, a bold new proposal has been put forward that could, in the words of the New York Times editorial page, create “A Congress for Every American.” The Fair Representation Act is intended to solve problems of partisan gerrymandering and uncompetitive elections by replacing America’s winner-take-all system with a fair and proportional system: ranked choice voting in multi-winner districts.
NYU Washington, DC and Fair Vote look forward to presenting this afternoon panel discussion featuring scholars and practitioners who will discuss what impact the Fair Representation Act would have on democracy in the United States.
Rob Richie has been the leader of FairVote since co-founding the organization in 1992; he was named president and CEO in 2018. He has played a key role in advancing, winning, and implementing electoral reforms at the local and state levels. Richie has been involved in helping to develop, win, and implement: ranked choice voting in states and more than 20 cities, fair representation voting systems in numerous Voting Rights Act cases, the National Popular Vote plan in 16 states, and voter access proposals like voter preregistration and automatic voter registration.
Richie is a frequent media source and has been a guest on NBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, NPR’s All Things Considered, On the Media, and Freakonomics. His writings have appeared in every major national publication, including the opinion pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post as well as in 11 books, including as co-author of Every Vote Equal, which is about Electoral College reform, and Whose Votes Count, which is about fair representation voting. He has addressed conventions of the American Political Science Association, the National Association of Counties, the National Association of Secretaries of State, and the National Conference of State Legislatures. He is a graduate of Haverford College, where he serves on its Corporation. Richie and his wife Cynthia Terrell are parents of Savanna, Lucas and Rebecca.
Kevin Johnson is the founder and executive director of Election Reformers Network. Kevin has 19 years’ experience in election reform programming, including two years with ERN, ten years as a Board Member of Common Cause Massachusetts, and seven years working on overseas democracy promotion with the National Democratic Institute. Kevin is on the Advisory Boards of Fairvote, Issue One and Voter Choice Massachusetts.
On the Board of Common Cause Massachusetts, Mr. Johnson participated in successful reform campaigns to establish automatic voter registration, early voting, online registration, improved access to government information, and the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission. He led a successful ballot question campaign in the city of Newton Massachusetts in support of an anti – Citizens United constitutional amendment. Mr Johnson was also part of a team organizing citizen participation in the highly regarded 2011 Massachusetts redistricting process. Mr. Johnson served on the Advisory Council to former Common Cause National President Bob Edgar.
At the National Democratic Institute, Mr. Johnson directed a range of programs including election observations in the West Bank and Gaza and several countries in Africa, and advisory programs for constitution drafters in new democracies.
Mr. Johnson is also CEO of Liberty Global Partners, an investment advisory firm focused on venture capital and private equity in emerging markets, which he co-founded in 2002. At Liberty Global, he has led capital marketing initiatives that have raised more than $6bn for investment funds targeting China, India, Brazil, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia.
Over the past year, Kevin has published nine articles or opinion pieces on election-related issues in media outlets including The Daily Beast, Commonwealth Magazine, and Independent Voter News. These pieces include a work of original research demonstrating a statistical link between extremism in Congress and the use of plurality voting in primary elections and the analysis of state level independent redistricting ballot initiatives referenced above.
Mr. Johnson has an MBA from Wharton and a BA in English Literature from Yale University.
Drew Penrose heads the law and policy department at FairVote. He contributes to work around ranked choice voting, primary elections, election administration, and the Voting Rights Act. He and Rob Richie have co-authored two law review articles arguing for the use of ranked choice voting in legislative elections. Penrose has also helped draft and submit amicus curiae briefs in cases concerning voting rights, primary elections, and ballot access.
Penrose earned a B.A. in Philosophy and a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Arizona in 2006, and a J.D. from the James E. Rogers College of Law in 2012. He is licensed to practice law in Arizona, where he has also published articles on public financing of elections in the Arizona Law Review and Arizona Attorney Magazine.