Katherine Gehl
Katherine Gehl introduces a new election system designed to improve competition and representation. She is a business leader, author, and the originator of Final Five Voting (FFV).
Transcript
Katherine Gehl:
We really need people to understand that what's going wrong in politics is not weird. It's totally rational given the rules of the game. And if we change the rules of the game, we will get different behavior.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Welcome to Good Citizen, a podcast from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. I'm Ted Roosevelt. I am particularly excited about my guest today because she has the solution to improve our elections. Katherine Gehl is a successful business leader and an influential advocate for election reform. In 2015, she stepped down as president and CEO of Gehl Foods to tackle political dysfunction in America. She founded the Institute for Political Innovation, an organization dedicated to advancing nonpartisan change. As you'll hear, she's an ardent advocate for Final Five voting, a new election system that creates greater choice and better competition. I'm excited for you to hear her insights.
Thank you for joining us. Katherine, it is such a thrill to have you on this podcast. It's a pleasure to meet you and get to chat with you.
Katherine Gehl:
Ted, I am super happy to be here with you today.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Awesome. So I want to just start really with this career shift that took place. You've obviously become very passionate about American politics and how to make it work better, but it's a pretty hard left from the food industry. Can you talk about what took you from point A to point B?
Katherine Gehl:
I certainly can. So because we're here on this podcast, which is related to your great great grandfather Teddy Roosevelt, I want to tell a little bit of the more personal end of the story. So seven years ago in May of 2017, I was expecting my second child and I was about to give a commencement address at the La Follette School of Public Policy at UW Madison. And in that address I was quoting the "man in the arena" speech, not because it hasn't been quoted by a zillion commencement speakers, but really because it has, because it has that power. And so I gave my remarks to a friend to read and at that time she said to me, that's what you should name your child if it's a boy. And so when my son was later born on June 1st, 2017, I named him Theodore and call him Teddy.
Ted Roosevelt V:
I love it.
Katherine Gehl:
And when Teddy was born, my older daughter Alexandra, who's 12 years older than he is, gave him a book that is "Who is Teddy Roosevelt?", this is from a series for kids about who is, what was, et cetera. And she wrote in the book to Teddy: "maybe someday you can be president or at least a good person." I think he is a very good person. So we'll see where he goes on the presidential aspect. But coming back now to say that I work where I work because life is short and you have to be in the arena to make things happen and I couldn't unsee what I had seen about the political system. I couldn't look at someone else and say it is someone else's job to put themselves out for democracy. And so I did.
Ted Roosevelt V:
I'm curious about your approach to fixing the political system because as a CEO of a company, what you see often is this sense of, "I was a CEO and the political system's broken and we need to run it more like a business." But that's not quite the way that you approached it. You approached it with a focus on the competition specifically. Can you speak to why that area was the fulcrum area that you wanted to focus your attention on?
Katherine Gehl:
In 2013, I was working on my business strategy and you look at the industry that you're in and you try to figure out how the value in that industry is divided and how it's determined. So I ran this food manufacturing company, high tech, but nonetheless we did make cheese, cheese sauce. So I think of it as there I was in the room trying to figure out how to sell more cheese and as I was looking at our industry of food manufacturing and cheese, I couldn't help it, but there was really a parallel analysis happening in my head about politics. So I'm thinking about customers and competitors and suppliers and looking at that for my company, I thought, wow, this is interesting. The politics industry has only two competitors in it, really, as in the Democrats and the Republicans and all of their associated allies on what I later came to call the political industrial complex.
And they're doing really well and yet their customers, which should be general election voters and the citizens, have never been more dissatisfied. And I thought that would be extraordinary because, if in my business, none of my customers were happy with the products I was selling them, but I was making tons of money, I know exactly what would happen. Someone, an entrepreneur, would see a phenomenal business opportunity and they would come into my industry in order to give my customers what they want. And that is how competition would make sure-- in most industries, make sure that the customers get what they want as well as the company's doing well. I'm not at all saying that our problem is the Democrats or the Republicans. Our problem is not the political parties. I actually want stronger political parties. Our problem is that the current two are guaranteed to be the only two ongoingly, regardless of what they do or don't get done on behalf of the citizens, their customers. We need competition in the political system to get things done that make a difference for real voters in their real lives. And that is what is missing. In every human endeavor, competition drives innovation, results and accountability. And that would be the same in politics and we just haven't tended to think of it that way. So that's why eventually I left business to bring this competition lens into the conversation.
Ted Roosevelt V:
And you came up with, and I don't want to lead you too much here, but you came up with Final Five Voting. Can you talk about the actual mechanisms that would go into place if we have Final Five? And I think I've heard you say, ranked choice voting is similar but a little different.
Katherine Gehl:
So Final Five elections is the umbrella name for a new way of electing people to the house, the Senate in Washington DC and to state government. It does not apply to the presidency. This term encompasses two changes to our existing system. First, under Final Five elections, we get rid of party primaries, the separate Democratic and Republican primary. And instead you have a single primary election where all candidates, regardless of party, are on the same ballot and every single voter has the right to participate whether or not they're registered with a specific party. The voter picks their favorite candidate just like always. The polls close, we count the votes, and under this new system, five top finishers---the first five places---advance to the general election. Now we're going to benefit from a dynamic diverse competition of ideas and visions and personalities between the primary and the general.
And then when we get to the general election in November, what we don't want to do is have one of those five candidates accidentally win with 21% of the vote, which could happen if the vote's split relatively equally five ways. So we need to find a way to have a majority winner. So for that we use runoffs and we make them instant so that we can get the results right away. But instead of having to keep showing back up at the polls to vote again, voters indicate all their votes at once using a ranked ballot, and then when the polls close, we narrow the five candidates from five to four to three, and then in the last round to the final two, at which point the candidate with the majority wins. You simply eliminate the candidate in last place in each round. So in summary, Final Five Voting is the combination of an open, all candidate, all voter primary plus an instant runoff general election among the top five finishers.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Talk about the value of that, why that's helpful to bringing more choices into the voter and how that changes the election system.
Katherine Gehl:
It's something that's up to us and article one of the Constitution gives every state the power to make the rules for their elections and not just their own elections in their state, but of how they elect their representatives in Congress. And the rules that they have created are the problem. It goes back to historical mistakes. So interestingly, of course when our country was founded, we are the modern model democracy. We were the first, there weren't examples of other democracies to look at. So once we were going to now elect people, they had to have a sense of what they wanted to do and what they had to decided was that their rule would be the winner is the person with the most votes. And that sounds super rational. Sure, the most votes you should win. But it turns out that that's actually a huge problem because in any race of more than two candidates, someone can win even if a majority of the voters don't want them.
For example, in a race of four people, someone can win with 26%, which could happen if the vote's split relatively equally four ways. So it's not representative which is unfair and not democratic and we should care about that. But the real problem about it is that that's the reason we always have lesser of two evils elections because when the most votes can win, anyone over two is a spoiler. A way to think about this is that all the way back in 2023, there were polls showing maybe 60-70% of the American public didn't want to see a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And yet here we are and we are having a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And I'm not commenting on either of those candidacies. What I'm commenting on here is that we have two candidates that at one point a majority of people totally didn't want. And there were efforts to bring additional candidates into the race, and in fact there is one major, sort of major candidate still in, Robert Kennedy Jr. And now the fight is on for opponents, for supporters of Biden and Trump to tell everybody: whatever you do, don't vote for this third person, because the best he will do is take votes away from the person you really like. So anytime we have over two candidates, the extras, the new entrants, the startup competitors, the innovation that comes into the marketplace, we're told not to buy them. Now that would never deliver any progress in any of our other industries. That's not how we get progress in Silicon Valley. You have people who can start up something in the garage and then that technology, if it's really good, eventually gets to the customer. But that doesn't happen in politics because the spoiler problem makes it impossible to get started.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Katherine, you talk about the stifling of competition in the general election. Why isn't there sufficient competition in the primaries?
Katherine Gehl:
Right now we have a two-phase election. We have the party primary system---the Democratic primary, the Republican primary---and then you get one person out of each of those and they're automatically on the ballot then in November. And the key problem we have for results is that you therefore only have two on the ballot in November, but it's worse than that because in most cases you already know which of those two has won, because party primaries have taken place in districts that are safe for one party or the other. So if a Democratic primary has already happened in a safe Democratic district, then the person who won is done because they're guaranteed to win in November. because they're the only Democrat on the ballot. So for example, the country has already elected 43% of the House of Representatives that will take office in January of 2025, and only 3% of United States citizens have voted in the party primaries that have already chosen this over 40% of the US House. So why I care less about "the competition" in the primary is because I just want to move the competition to the November election because that's when everybody turns out. A way to think about it is that Final Four and Final Five elections ensure that no one ever wins an election until November, voters has voted. Period. And, it ensures that no one ever wins an election unless there was competition in that election to serve those voters.
Ted Roosevelt V:
You make an unbelievably compelling argument, and I can tell from the way that you're talking about this and from your book that you spent some time looking at the full range of issues that you might spend your time on. Why did Final Five Voting become the preeminent issue for you?
Katherine Gehl:
Some of this I think comes from business. Again, one of the things we don't do in business is market and advertise to people a product that we can't actually deliver to them. So for example, right now when I speak, people will raise their hands and say, okay, yeah, Final Five Voting, fine. But the real problem is, and they'll say either it's the electoral college and we need the national popular vote, or it's money in politics and we need to get rid of Citizens United, or it's gerrymandering and we need to change the way districts are drawn or it is term limits. All those things, to change them, need a constitutional amendment. And in this divided country, that isn't happening. What's crazy to me is how much money is raised by nonprofits who have a good cause that ain't never going to happen. And we donate money to it and the media talks about it and I just want to call BS on that. And I want to say if we had a fraction of the money that goes into these causes...
Ted Roosevelt V:
I'm wondering where you get the most pushback. Who's fighting this the hardest?
Katherine Gehl:
Who tends to be against it so far are the people in that state who have optimized their current careers and businesses under the current system. Humans, all of us, you and me included, tend to not like change. People distrust change. It's easier to get people to say no to change than to say yes to change. So even though I can make an argument that there's a huge business opportunity in the new system, in fact there's a bigger business opportunity in the new system, there'll be more campaigns. And by the way, the reason that's fine that there's more campaigns and perhaps more money paying for those campaigns is because ultimately now the voters will be the ones who decide instead of the money deciding. But that just seems like work to people. It's legitimate to criticize this and---to critique it, I should say, and be concerned and pressure test it. What I don't think is helpful is to say, since we've never tried it, we can't be a hundred percent sure it works, so we should stick with the system that we've definitely tried and are pretty much a hundred percent sure doesn't work.
Ted Roosevelt V:
One thing that you've identified and talked about here that is encouraging is that it is not set in stone how things are done, that the system is designed to evolve and adapt to what are now these structural challenges in our election process. That's something that's often overlooked or not talked about as much in terms of, part of the great features of American politics is that there is the ability to evolve and change and to make these adaptions over time. Is there a point in which there's enough momentum that this becomes a fait accompli in your mind?
Katherine Gehl:
So right now I have some success metrics, which is I'll say, oh, we've run two campaigns, Alaska, Nevada, we won both of them. So we're two for two, we're a hundred percent, fantastic. But if in 10 years the only thing we have to talk about are how many campaigns we won and got Final Five Voting changed in a state that's totally unacceptable. In 10 years, the only thing that I want to be measuring on is looking at the states that have this new system of elections and asking whether the governing in those states is delivering better results for those states. We'll be able to compare quite robustly over time whether those are better governed states and also whether the talent that's running is more engaged, whether their voter turnout is better. And then what's really fascinating is how few states it takes to actually substantively change what's possible in Washington D.C. If we have Final Five Voting in five states, that's 10 senators who are, as I call it, freed from the tyranny of the party primary, these 10 senators form a bench to form this nucleus of problem solving. And in a closely divided Senate where it's sort of 50-50, if you have 10 people who aren't always lockstep, they can cut the deals, they can do the negotiations, which is the way our government is set up. To give the short answer, the tipping point will come because the results will show that it's worth it.
Ted Roosevelt V:
There's a second phase to this and maybe that's the wrong terminology, but you also have a plan for zero-based rulemaking to improve governance, which if I understand correctly, is something that you will focus on once the Final Five Voting has really taken root. Can you explain briefly what zero-based rulemaking is?
Katherine Gehl:
A good way of understanding how serious we are about our priority being on the quality of governance is this example that I use a lot. I say, look, if the fairy godmother came down and said, oh, Katherine and Ted, right now, the two of you have two choices, and I will grant either wish. Wish A is you can have all perfect people in the US House and the Senate, the best people, but you don't get to change any election rules, keep the rules of their reelection the same. Or, wish B is, you can keep all the existing people but change the rules of their next election to be Final Five elections. You can have A or B. I would choose B in a heartbeat and keep all the existing people and have their incentives for what guides, what they choose to do with their power, dictated by the accountability and competition that they're going to face in the next election.
The second point I want to make is, I want to give an actual example of how competition changes things. So again, we're familiar with this in our lives. Think about the innovation that comes from Silicon Valley or the innovation we've had in healthcare over the years. That's because there are new ideas that come into the marketplace and they get adopted. And the interesting thing is, competition changes the innovation and the value that is delivered to customers no matter who wins. That's what we're looking for. That's what competition delivers. We've seen it and that is exactly what will happen when we have real competition in politics under Final Four and Final Five Voting.
Ted Roosevelt V:
We ask everybody on this podcast two questions. What is an action that you would encourage our listeners to take?
Katherine Gehl:
If you live in Alaska, Nevada, Colorado, Montana, or Idaho, please get involved in the campaigns in your state that are for Final Five or Final Four voting and get involved by telling all of your friends as well. Okay, so you got to Google and you'll find the campaign, you can volunteer, you can donate, you can vote for these innovations, and that will make an enormous difference. If you live in any of the other states, you can also support those campaigns by reaching out to all of your friends who live in those states and telling them to vote for it. It really is, it's a democratic process. So if you liked what you heard here today, share this podcast because we really need people to understand that what's going wrong in politics is not weird. It's totally rational given the rules of the game. And if we change the rules of the game, we will get different behavior.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Is there an organization in particular that people should support or look up or get involved with, and maybe it's the Institute for Political Innovation?
Katherine Gehl:
Yeah, so finalfivevoting.org is where they can go. I also run the Institute for Political Innovation, and so they're all part of the same structure. We are supporting those state campaigns. If you also feel an affinity for those state campaigns, feel free to give to them directly. The money doesn't need to come through us, it needs to go where you would like it to go to support these efforts. And one thing I'll tell you is I have a game I play, which is that I talk to every single person I sit next to on a plane. Pretty much I have a hundred percent track record of getting them to like Final Five Voting if they speak English. And that's regardless of party. And I give myself extra points if I get to draw a Venn diagram on the napkin that comes with our drinks. Doesn't make them need to become a Democrat if they're a Republican or a Republican if they're a Democrat, something that works for everybody. So it is our government, our country, and this is something that we're accountable to safeguard ourselves as citizens.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Katherine, I love your message. I love the way that you're approaching everything, but I love more than anything else that you've stepped into the arena to solve this problem yourself, and you're doing it in a very clear-headed way and it's been really a joy to listen to. So thank you very much for taking time on this podcast with us today.
Katherine Gehl:
And thank you, Ted for having me on the podcast. And thank you for the work that you guys are doing and for what will be an extraordinary new presidential library, which I have already shown the renderings to my son and have promised him that we will go to visit this library because I do want him to know really where his name came from, whether or not he becomes, in the words of my daughter, the great president, or just a nice person.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Well, I think the bar for good person might actually be a little higher than the next president in my mind, so I wouldn't besmirch it. And consider yourself invited to the opening on July 4th, 2026. So we'd love to have you there.
Katherine Gehl:
Oh, we are totally there. This is awesome.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Thank you Katherine for highlighting the benefits of Final Five Voting. It is a thoughtful approach to reducing partisanship in our political system and improving outcomes. Listeners, you can check out Katherine Gehl's book, The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy, for more information. And if you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to rate and review the podcast. Good Citizen is produced by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in collaboration with the Future of StoryTelling and Charts & Leisure. You can learn more about TR's upcoming presidential library at trlibrary.com.