LeaderEthics-Wisconsin, a nonpartisan/nonprofit organization committed to promoting ethical leadership among elected officials, is endorsing the Final-Five Voting legislation in Wisconsin. “We believe this is a serious effort, designed to curtail some of the hyper-partisanship we are seeing in politics today”, says Executive Director of LeaderEthics-Wisconsin, Lee Rasch. “We are encouraged that the legislation has bipartisan sponsorship”.
In late February, bipartisan state legislators circulated a bill to advance Final-Five Voting for federal elections in Wisconsin. The bill lead sponsors are:
- State Senator Dale Koyoonga (R)
- State Senator Jeff Smith (D)
- State Assembly Representative Tony Kurtz (R)
- State Assembly Representative Daniel Reimer (D)
Final-Five Voting (nonpartisan ‘top-five’ primaries + ‘instant runoff’ general elections) is designed to realign incentives for Congress to better bring results and accountability to Washington, DC. “Final-Five Voting counters the process where the extreme wings of the major political parties can threaten to ‘primary’ an elected official for seeking bipartisan solutions”, according to Rasch. “We need to be willing to embrace bipartisanship if we are going to address some of the major issues faced by our country”.
Democracy Found, a Wisconsin-based initiative committed to revitalizing democracy, has been the champion in promoting this legislation. “We applaud their leadership” states Rasch. Katherine Gehl, co-founder of Democracy Found and co-author of The Politics Industry provides background on Final-Five Voting in a 17min TEDx . More information about this effort is available on Democracy Found website: www.democracyfound.
For more information about the position of LeaderEthics-Wisconsin, contact Lee Rasch at leaderethicswi@gmail.com.
