Not fans of forcing the Commission on Presidential Debates to include independents in the pre-election debates when third party candidates threatened Democratic nominees, Democrats on the Federal Election Commission now want debates expanded as Donald Trump threatens a third party challenge to the GOP.
Calling a change to debates of three candidates long overdue as more Americans declare themselves independents, two of three FEC Democrats, including the chairwoman, are urging a new push to force the debates commission to change rules to make it easier third party challengers to get a place in the three presidential debates.
1200+ public comments asked FEC to open rulemaking on candidate debate rules. My response w @AnnMRavel: Let’s do it! http://t.co/LzYgmhh0VY
— Ellen L Weintraub (@EllenLWeintraub) August 14, 2015
“The FEC has an important role to play in ensuring broad participation in our political process, including in our public dialogue,” wrote Chairwoman Ann Ravel and fellow Democrat Ellen Weintraub.
“At a time when an increasing number of Americans identify as independents, we should not be satisfied with regulations that may be preventing their points of view from being represented in public debate. At a minimum, we ought to engage with the public on this issue. It has been over twenty years since the Commission has taken a serious look at its rules on candidate debates. Such a re-examination is long overdue,” they wrote.
Their memo came after the FEC, made up of three Democrats and three Republicans, rejected a plea from the group “Level the Playing Field” to force the debates commission to change their rules, the key one being a requirement that candidates have at least 15 percent support in polls.
Arguing their case, the two Democrats wrote:
“As Level the Playing Field has pointed out, the effect of the 15-percent polling threshold has been that, since its adoption, only the two major party candidates have appeared in the debates. The Commission’s regulations require that nomination by a major party may not be the sole objective criterion to determine who may participate in a debate. However, the criteria established by CPD seem to have accomplished the same result by different means. This problem has not gone unnoticed; the [FEC] received more than 1200 comments urging it to open a rule making, with CPD as the sole commenter opposing the petition.”
A similar urging was not aired in 2004 when liberal Ralph Nader, an independent presidential candidate, wanted to participate in debates with former President George W. Bush and former Sen. John Kerry. Democrats at the time feared Nader would take support from Kerry.
Now, as Trump surges in the polls, Republicans fear that if he chooses a third party run, he will pull votes from the eventual GOP nominee.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
