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Colorado Group Behind Prop 140 Spending Millions To Flip Arizona Blue

October 23, 2024

By Staff Reporter |

The financier of the ballot initiative seeking to reform Arizona’s elections with open primaries and ranked-choice voting has the impact of flipping states blue — much like its primary funder did in Colorado. 

That financier, Unite America, is listed as the single biggest funder on the campaign media spending report for the entity behind Proposition 140, the Make Elections Fair PAC. Unite America gave over $1.7 million to boost the political action committee earlier this month.

Unite America’s primary funder is one of its board co-chairs, Kent Thiry, who was behind several election reforms that shifted Colorado to a blue state. Thiry acquired his wealth being the chairman and CEO of the national dialysis provider DaVita from 1999 to 2019, a role that resulted in him facing a 2021 federal indictment for violating antitrust law. A jury acquitted Thiry of the conspiracy charges in 2022. 

Additionally, DaVita agreed to pay out a $34.5 million settlement earlier this year over whistleblower allegations of anti-kickback laws. The millions were a portion of the nearly $1 billion in whistleblower settlements: $450 million in 2015 over allegations of defrauding Medicare by billing the government for trashed dialysis drugs, and $350 million in 2014 for other alleged kickbacks to doctors. 

Rather than reform his dialysis business over those years, Thiry trained his sights on elections.

Through his investments and organizational efforts, Thiry has taken credit for several major reforms in Colorado. Those reforms include allowing unaffiliated voters into party primaries (2016), establishing a public vote and nixing in-person presidential caucuses (2016), and thwarting gerrymandering through the establishment of an independent commission (2018). 

This year, Thiry has spent millions to achieve the ultimate goal in Colorado and all other states, including Arizona: establishing open primaries and ranked-choice voting. Thiry believes that America won’t survive without those two major reforms. 

“There aren’t that many great democracies that have survived more than a couple hundred years. And in order to survive, you have to modernize and modify and reflect society,” said Thiry in an interview with CPR News.

Those three gradual reforms contributed to the state’s shift from purple to blue over the years.

With Thiry’s help, Unite America has spent over $70 million since 2019 on getting states to similarly reform their elections with open primaries and ranked-choice voting. 

Unite America (formerly the Centrist Project) gained more momentum in Colorado following Republican firebrand Lauren Boebert’s surprise congressional victory in 2020. 

That year, Unite America successfully spent over $3 million to enact open primaries and ranked-choice voting in Alaska. In the first election cycle after those reforms, Republican House candidate Sarah Palin lost the House race, and Republican moderate Lisa Murkowski defended her Senate seat against a more conservative challenger.

In addition to Arizona, the organization has invested in state campaigns for the major election reforms that have benefited centrists and Democrats in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. 

Per Unite America’s research arm, Unite America Institute, their goals for election reforms include top-four nonpartisan primaries, full voting from home, ranked-choice voting used for all offices, and an independent redistricting commission.

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