Krist Novoselic, Chair

A member of the groundbreaking rock band Nirvana, Krist Novoselic, along with bandmates Kurt Cobain and David Grohl, changed the course of music history when they snapped up Billboard Magazine's number one spot with their much-acclaimed album Nevermind. In doing so, Nirvana opened the doors for a flood of a new generation of bands. After Nirvana, Novoselic went on to become one of rock's most politically-minded musicians. Krist has also committed himself to numerous different community projects and has become an influential part of the Northwest political scene.

Krist joined FairVote's Board in 2005 and was elected chair in 2008.

Select Content Authored by Krist:

• The Chairman's Corner: FairVote reforms featured in Mann-Ornstein book

• PR Proposal for California: Interview with Michael Latner

• Voters Want Choices. And They Want to Be Heard

Recent Media Featuring Krist:

• Krist Novoselic on The Rachel Maddow Show

• New York Times Review of Of Grunge and Government

Cynthia Terrell, Board Secretary

Cynthia Terrell is a founder of FairVote and has served as a board member of several charitable organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee.Terrell has worked in the area of voting system reform in this country and abroad, traveling in 1993 to New Zealand to support that country's successful referendum to adopt a proportional voting system. She also directed the research for several reports produced by FairVote, including analyses of the 1994 and 1996 congressional elections and the 1992 presidential elections.

Before helping to found FairVote, Terrell worked extensively as a political consultant around the country, working as campaign manager and field director for campaigns for the U.S. President, U.S. House and U.S. Senate, for governor and for state and city-wide initiative efforts. Among these campaigns were a proposed equal rights amendment in 1992 to the Iowa state constitution, the 1992 presidential campaign of Sen. Tom Harkin, Douglas Wilder's 1989 gubernatorial victory in Virginia and former Congresswoman Jolene Unsoeld's congressional campaign in 1990. Terrell also researched the state initiative process for the Fund for the Feminist Majority. Terrell is a mother of three children and active in civic affairs in Takoma Park, Maryland. She graduated with a B.A. in political science from Swarthmore College in 1986.

Hendrik Hertzberg

Hendrik Hertzberg, a member of FairVote’s board since 1995, is a senior editor of The New Yorker, where he frequently writes the "Comment" column of political commentary. He has written for that magazine off and on since 1969, when, after serving in the U.S. Navy, he became a staff writer for "The Talk of the Town." 

When Jimmy Carter was elected President in 1976, Mr. Hertzberg left The New Yorker for what turned out to be a sixteen-year absence. He joined the White House staff as a junior speechwriter and in 1979 became President Carter’s chief speechwriter. He accompanied Carter on his travels in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and worked on all his major speeches up to and including the (unscheduled) Farewell Address. It was this hands-on experience at the highest levels of government that prompted Mr. Hertzberg to become interested in the effect of electoral systems not only on policy formation but also on the general political health of a modern democracy. 

For more than a decade after Carter’s re-election defeat Mr. Hertzberg was associated with The New Republic, alternating with Michael Kinsley as the magazine’s editor.  During Mr. Hertzberg’s second and final three-year stint in the editor’s chair, TNR twice won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence – the magazine world’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. In between editorial stints he wrote for TNR and many other magazines from a base at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was a fellow at the Institute of Politics and the Shorenstein Center for the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. 

Mr. Hertzberg rejoined The New Yorker in 1992, initially as executive editor under Tina Brown. He lives in New York City with his wife, Virginia Cannon, also a New Yorker senior editor, and their young son. He is the author of "Politics: Observations & Arguments," published by Penguin Books. His blog for the New Yorker online can be read here.

William Redpath, Treasurer

William Redpath has served as FairVote's Treasurer since 1995.

Mr. Redpath has been a member of the Libertarian Party since 1984, having run for office five times in Virginia, including being the Libertarian candidate for Governor in 2001, U.S. Senate in 2008, and US House of Representatives, Tenth District, in 2010. He is currently an At-Large Representative on the Libertarian National Committee, and was Chairman of the Libertarian National Committee from 2006 to 2010. He is also a former Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Virginia.

Mr. Redpath was Ballot Access Committee Chair of the Libertarian Party from 1990 to 1997, successfully leading the party to 50 state ballot status for its presidential tickets in both 1992 and 1996. This was the first time that a U.S. minor political party qualified its presidential ticket for the ballot in all states in successive elections.

Professionally, Mr. Redpath is a Vice President with BIA/Kelsey, which offers financial and strategic advisory services for the media, telecommunications, and related industries.

Prior to joining BIA in 1985, Mr. Redpath was a Senior Financial Analyst with NBC in New York. Prior to that, Mr. Redpath was a staff auditor in the Cincinnati office of Arthur Andersen & Co., from 1980 to 1982. Subsequent to that, he was Assistant Financial Manager of WISH-TV, Indianapolis. He then joined the Internal Audit Department of ABC in New York, after which, in 1984, he took the position with NBC.

Mr. Redpath earned his B.A. degree in Economics and Political Science from Indiana University and his M.B.A. from The University of Chicago. He is a Certified Public Accountant in the Commonwealth of Virginia. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, from which he has earned the Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) designation. He is an Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) in Business Valuation with the American Society of Appraisers, is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and has earned the Certificate in Investment Performance Measurement (CIPM) designation from the CFA Institute. 

[Bill Redpath's FairVote Bio on YouTube]

David Wilner

David Wilner co-founded Wind River Systems in 1981 and for many years was its Chief Technical Officer. He is a recognized expert in the field of real-time software engineering. Before founding the company, Mr. Wilner was a Senior Staff Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. He is an expert on computers and technology, topics that are increasingly relevant to electoral reform.

Katie Ghose

In 2010, Katie Ghose became Chief Executive of the Election Reform Society, an organization in the United Kingdom that promotes alternative voting systems. A campaigner and barrister with a background in human rights law and immigration, she served as a Commissioner on the Independent Asylum Commission from 2006–2008, where she helped to conduct the biggest ever independent review of the UK asylum system leading to the government's commitment to get rid of the detention of children in immigration centers.

She has worked as a lobbyist and campaigner for several third sector organizations including Age UK and Citizens Advice and spent five years as Director of the British Institute of Human Rights.

Katie has delivered lectures, seminars and courses on campaigns and public affairs the UK for a range of charities, public bodies and lawyers. Her first book Beyond the Courtroom: a lawyer’s guide to campaigning was published by Legal Action Group in 2005.

Paul Jacob

Paul Jacob is one of the nation's leading advocates of term limits and of initiative and referendum rights. He has worked on over 100 initiative and ballot access campaigns throughout the United States. For more than ten years Paul led U.S. Term Limits, the nation's largest term limits group, and today is president of Citizens in Charge, a non-partisan, non-profit advocacy organization

Paul hosts Common Sense, an online, radio and print opinion program. He writes a weekly column for Townhall.com and his writing has been featured in numerous publications including USA Today,The New York Daily News, The Washington Times, and The Chicago Tribune. He has appeared on Fox News, CNN's "Inside Politics," NBC's "Today" show and ABC's "Nightline."

Paul spoke at a 1995 conference organized by FairVote in Boston and has campaigned for ranked choice voting in states such as Washington.

 Tim Hayes

Tim Hayes is the founder and Executive Producer at CBGB Festival, New York City's largest showcase of music, film, art, social awareness and entertainment industry workshops and conferences. Named for the iconic music club that fostered emerging American music in the 1970s, CBGB Festival serves as a meeting point for musicians, fans, and entertainment industry professionals.

Tim also founded Productions New York and has served as its President since 2006. Prior to starting Productions New York, he worked as a Production Executive at the Walt Disney Company for seven years.

Susannah Wellford

Over the past 16 years, Susannah Wellford has founded two organizations designed to raise the political voice of young women in America.

In spring 2007, Ms. Wellford founded Running Start to inspire young women and girls to political leadership. Running Start furthers the work begun by the Women Under Forty Political Action Committee (WUFPAC), which Susannah cofounded in 1999 and led for the first five years. WUFPAC is a national women’s group dedicated to electing young women to political office. A nonpartisan organization, WUFPAC is the only political action committee in the United States devoted to helping young women of all parties run for elected office.

Ms. Wellford speaks frequently to colleges, law schools, political groups, trade associations and nonprofits about the importance of involving more young women in politics. She has also lectured about politics to many international groups, including women from Kuwait, Southeast Asia, Korea, Bahrain and Russia. She was invited to Kuwait by the Kuwaiti government in spring 2006 to meet Kuwait’s first women candidates and to advise them on their campaigns, and has been sent by the State Department to speak in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Israel, Belgium and Moscow.

After receiving her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1998, she worked for several years at Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, lobbying for state and local governments, foreign governments, corporate entities and trade associations before Congress and the Executive Branch.

Prior to law school, Ms. Wellford worked for Hillary Clinton’s Health Care Task Force in the Clinton White House. As a member of the Health Care War Room staff, she planned and executed grass-roots health care events for the President and First Lady and coordinated speaking events for Congressional Members and White House staff on health care reform issues. She is also a former Legislative Assistant for Senator Wyche Fowler from Georgia.

Ms. Wellford is a 1990 graduate of Davidson College. She lives in Washington, DC with her twin sons, Ben and James.

Mike Lind

Michael Lind is the New America Foundation's Policy Director for the Economic Growth Program. He is a co-founder of New America and became its first fellow in 1999. He wrote New America’s manifesto, The Radical Center (2001), with Ted Halstead. He also wrote the first book published under the New America imprint with Basic Books, Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics (2003). Lind co-founded the American Strategy Program, named after Lind’s book The American Way of Strategy (2006).

A graduate of the University of Texas and Yale, Lind has taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins and has been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New Republic and The National Interest. Lind is a columnist for Salon and writes frequently for The New York Times and The Financial Times. He is the author of numerous books of history, political journalism, fiction, poetry and children’s literature. His most recent book is Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States (2012). He has published several magazine pieces about electoral reform, ranging from this August 1992 piece for the Atlantic to this July 2014 piece for Salon.

Joe Swimmer

Joe Swimmer serves as a Major Gift Officer at the Washington National Cathedral. Before relocating to Washington, DC from San Francisco in April 2016, Joe was the Director of Individual Giving with the Center for Youth Wellness. He also served as the Director of Development and Communications for the California Bar Foundation and as the Associate Director of Annual Giving and Gift Officer for the University of California, Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall).

Joe graduated with a degree in history and religion, magna cum laude, from Tufts University and holds his law degree from Stanford Law School. He is a member of the State Bar of California.

Over his career, he has been active in numerous civic and professional organizations. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of The Rensselaerville Institute. Joe has served on the vestries of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, both in San Francisco.

Joe is a member of the Cherokee Nation and has served his tribe in a variety of advisory and support roles over the years. He lives in Washington, DC with his husband and dog.

John B. Anderson, Chair Emeritus

Former presidential candidate John B. Anderson served as chair of FairVote from 1996 until 2008, after four years as chair of our Advisory Board. Mr. Anderson served in the U.S. House of Representatives for two decades and received six million votes as an independent candidate for president in 1980.

Mr. Anderson has frequently represented FairVote on major media outlets and has been a frequent lecturer and expert commentator on issues of electoral reform, United Nations reform, foreign affairs, American politics, and independent candidacies. He has published widely on the role of Congress in both domestic and international affairs.

Between 1961 and 1981, Mr. Anderson served ten terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from the 16th District of Illinois. He served on the House Rules Committee and for a decade was Chairman of the House Republican Conference. 

For more than a decade Mr. Anderson taught constitutional law at Nova Southeastern University. He taught political science and law as a visiting professor at numerous universities, including Bryn Mawr College, Brandeis University, Stanford University, Oregon State University, the University of Illinois and the Washington School of Law.

Mr. Anderson earned his B.A. and J.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, received an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School in 1949, and has since been awarded honorary doctorates of law from Wheaton College and Trinity College. During World War II, Mr. Anderson was a staff sergeant in the U.S. Field Artillery. In foreign service between 1952 and 1955, he was Economic Reporting Officer in the Eastern Affairs Division. He served as States Attorney in Winnebago County, Illinois for four years.

John Anderson's 2009 FairVote Bio on YouTube

2014 Interview with John Anderson on Electoral Reform

Read more on John Anderson in the Harvard Law Bulletin