A former chairman of the Federal Election Commission says it would likely be within CNN’s legal rights to change the criteria for its upcoming Republican presidential debate, if the network felt the change would more accurately reflect the state of the campaign.
On Wednesday, GOP candidate Carly Fiorina’s campaign accused CNN of establishing unfair admission standards for its debate in September, standards that might keep her out of the main event, and relegate her to a smaller venue.
CNN has said it would not change its criteria, which were published in May, because it would violate FEC regulations. The FEC rules dictate that a TV network hosting a debate “must use pre-established objective criteria to determine which candidates may participate…”
But Bradley Smith, who was appointed to chair the FEC by President Bill Clinton and served from 2000 to 2005, said CNN would probably be fine to make changes to its criteria if it wanted.
“If I were CNN’s counsel, I would not feel uncomfortable at all in making that change,” Smith said in an interview Friday with the Washington Examiner media desk.
Smith, who now teaches election law at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, said a rule change that sought to reflect a dramatic change in the campaign or take account for new developments would be unlikely to draw objections from the FEC. He said the FEC is generally reluctant to meddle with news organizations in situations like this because it gives off the appearance of limiting or censoring the press.
Fox News hosted a debate in early August that was similar in format to CNN’s and broken into two parts. Eight days ahead of the debate, Fox changed the criteria for its second-tier debate, dropping an initial requirement that participating candidates must poll above 1 percent in an average of national polls.
The FEC did not object.
“Fox said we’re gonna do away with that because we’d be ruling out who we think are really major candidates,” Smith said. “Fox didn’t seem concerned they would be prosecuted for that. That reflects the actual state of enforcement by the FEC.”
A spokesperson for CNN did not return a request for comment.
CNN’s current criteria dictate that candidates polling in the top 10 of an average of national polls will be featured in one segment of the debate, while another segment will be reserved for seven candidates who fall outside of the top tier.
Candidates who don’t make it on stage with the top 10 candidates are perceived as less likely to win the party’s nomination. Fiorina only recently began polling in the top 10, but CNN’s current method for the debate will lean on the earlier polls, thus possibly excluding Fiorina from the main stage.
