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10 03 24 Former DaVita CEO Kent Thiry discusses Proposition 131 Ranked Choice Voting
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Washington Post.com/bf24 After the movie "Free Willy" became a hit, word got out that the star of the film, a killer whale named Keiko, was sick and still living in a tiny pool in a Mexican amusement park. Fans were outraged, kids demanded his release. I'm Daniel Alarcon, from serial productions in The New York Times, comes The Good Whale, a story about the wildly ambitious science experiment to return Keiko to the ocean. Listen to new episodes on Thursdays. Want early access to the whole show? Subscribe to The Times at nytimes.com/podcast to listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. We have a huge push to integrate ranked choice voting into Colorado elections underway, which is backed by a multi-million dollar campaign. Thank you, Marty and Gina. So we gave a very sparked notes version of what this could look like if it does pass. Can you walk us through if a voter received a ballot and ranked choice voting was available in our state? What would it look like to them and how would they cast their ballot? Well Prop 131, which we want people to vote yes on, Prop 131 is a tidy three-step process. Step number one, an open primary, where each voter gets to vote for whatever candidate they want because taxpayers are paying for that election. Step number two is you advance four people from the primary to the general. This creates wonderful choice in the general election, which we don't have now. And then the third and final step is an elected candidate has to get a majority support before they can become an elected official instead of winning with a minority performance. And that's what we call ranked voting, where you just very simply rank one, two, three, four, or just one, two, or just one if you want. You've been on this beat for a while, and do you think there's a greater need for this now than say even three, four, five, six a decade ago? Unfortunately, the answer is yes, which is why we're doing it. Our democracy right now is having some rough times, and there's lots of Americans who feel that they can't cast a meaningful vote, and they're not happy with the choices they're being given. And in so many cases, in fact, in 85 percent of our legislative races, there's really only one candidate for the people to vote for, because 85 percent of our districts are dominated by one party and the other. And in those dominant party primaries, there's most to the time only one name even on the ballot. That's how bad it is now, that 9 out of 10 Coloradans, for example, didn't get the cast to vote in the state Senate election last year, that meant anything. All those races were predetermined as to who was going to be the winner through party control over ballot access. Ken, when would this go into effect if it was passed? Because it looks like it has faced some hurdles due to the new clause that was added to Senate bill 210. That's kind of requiring a slower rollout if this was approved. So what are some of the hurdles that it could still face even if it was passed by voters in November? You guys really did your homework, and we appreciate that 210 was an unethical and anti-democratic move by a very tiny number of legislators who were worried about our provision returning more power to the voters, and at the very last minute in the session, without any public debate. They went ahead and tried to put some poison pills to preemptively subvert the will of the people. Well, Governor Polis, as well as all the media, roundly condemned what they had done. And Polis said that he's going to issue an executive order if we win, and there'll be a true objective task force that stares at what the implementation should be. We believe the best time and the doable time with the right resources, which we will fight for, for our clerks, 2026 is the right year. Some of the people that are trying to delay it, it's not because they're concerned about implementation. It's because they're afraid of losing some of their power, and they're trying to kill it. I know you're not concerned with the party system necessarily, because you're trying to put the power back in the hands of the people, but philosophically, is this the way are you kind of anti what the party system has become, or just the party system in general? And I'm not conner to either, and this is the great irony, because some people are ready to create a third party in America, or a third, fourth, fifth. I'm an old Polisite history guy, and I really worry about all the transitional disruption that would come from that. It's not what we're used to. And so the irony is when I get accused by a partisan Republican or Democrat of trying to destroy the two-party system by empowering independents, I say, no, we're trying to save it, 48% of our citizens are now independents. That's more than Democrats or Republicans combined. That's why the voters should get to set the rules, and it's 64% for young adults under 34, and 85% of Generation Z does not think either party has anything to offer them. So our measure will help strengthen the parties by making them relevant again, and respected again. What would you say to critics who are claiming that ranked-choice voting is confusing, it's wordy, and it sounds like one of the bigger concerns is that they're worried that a candidate who just has the most money and the most advertising dollars would rise to the top in it? Well, let me tackle the money thing first, because they're so hypocritical, since the Democrats have been particularly a few Democratic party leaders, because 70% of their voters are in favor of this, but a few of the Democratic party leaders that will lose power, and losing power to their own members, by the way, so they shouldn't look at it that way, but they're so hypocritical because they raised and spent 10 times what we are doing, and some of the people from, well, the state and honest state that supported us, that are well-to-do people, and they're being very critical, they're the same people who contributed to some of those Democratic campaigns in the past, and they didn't have any problem taking that money and rebutting any criticisms, and we've asked them, time after time, can you tell us and explain your logic for why you think this would increase money in politics? We have never gotten an answer. We don't claim that our provision will eliminate the issue of money in politics, we're not making that claim, but their claim that will actually make it worse is bizarre and unsupported by any logical example. In wrapping up with you, Ken, I was just looking at other states that have this or don't have it, and again, this may be very anecdotal, but the states that have banned it statewide ranked choice voting, all have, and tendency have to be states that lean red or are red, and there's a few here and there are Colorado in between where there's some local options, you mean, municipalities, do you find that interesting or intriguing as well for those people that are against it, it may not even fall along politics, are you saying this is more about just preserving power, not necessarily the policy piece? Yeah, people with power tend to use power to keep power, and right now, the far left and right, have disproportionate power. They deserve their proportionate slice of influence, but right now, it's disproportionate, and yes, you can't look at someone and look at the company they keep, so the leader of the Democratic Party here in Colorado, Shad, the people that are on his side on this issue are people like Lauren Bobert, or people like Tina Peters, or people like Dave Williams, or states like Alabama or Missouri or Florida, that's the company he's keeping on this issue. On the other hand, on our side, we've got Governor Polis, we've got Governor Hickenlooper, we've got Republican Mayor of Aurora, Mike Kaufman, we've got Mike Johnson from Denver, and so look at the array of first the people, and second the states, the other states that are looking at this, or are expanding it, are states like Minnesota and Washington and Oregon, and so normally, the states that Colorado would be aligned with are exactly the states that the current Democratic Party leadership are rejecting, and instead, aligning their policy views with the MAGA red states. Proponent and one of the big funders behind the push of Proposition 131 ranked choice voting on the November ballot, its former Devita CEO, Kent Theory, thank you so much for your time this morning, we'll speak with first choice counts, who is one of the organizations against this measure coming up at 719. It's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays. The Roku Channel, your home for free and premium TV, is giving you access to holiday music and genre-based stations from iHeart all for free. Find the soundtrack of the season with channels like iHeartChristmas and North Pole Radio. The Roku Channel is available on all Roku devices, web, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung TVs, and the Roku mobile app on iOS and Android devices. Go stream what you love and turn up the cheer with iHeartRadio on the Roku Channel. Happy streaming! I have a way to make your morning more efficient. You can get caught up on the news in about 7 minutes. That is my promise to you as the host of the 7 podcast from the Washington Post. And in that time, I will run down 7 stories, everything from the most important headlines to fascinating new information you might miss otherwise. My name is Hannah Jewell, go follow the 7 right now, wherever you're listening. And we will get you caught up. After the movie Free Willy became a hit, word got out that the star of the film, a killer whale named Keiko, was sick and still living in a tiny pool in a Mexican amusement park. Fans were outraged, kids demanded his release. I'm Daniel Alarcon, from serial productions in The New York Times, comes The Good Whale, a story about the wildly ambitious science experiment to return Keiko to the ocean. Listen to new episodes on Thursdays. Want early access to the whole show? Subscribe to The Times at nytimes.com/podcast to listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.