The battle over whether President Joe Biden should remain the Democrats’ presidential nominee has entered a new phase, with the party vying to expedite his official nomination through a virtual roll call as early as next week — or wait to be honored in person. Their August conference.
Biden supporters want to move quickly with the virtual roll call, saying the plan has been set and approved for weeks — long before the presidential debate in June — and is necessary because of Republican moves in Ohio that once threatened to keep the president at bay. State ballot.
But Ohio lawmakers moved to close that loophole in late May. With Biden’s spot on the ballot now secured, Biden’s critics say, a virtual roll call process now amounts to an attempt to ram through his nomination.
Who is right? It depends on how safe you think Biden’s Ohio ballot spot is — and whether the party needs more time to decide who you think will challenge Donald Trump.
Since the June 27 presidential debate, Democrats have waged a heated internal battle over whether Biden should be at the top of the ticket given his troubling performance and deteriorating health. Dozens of lawmakers and activists have called on the president to consider moving ahead of the Democratic National Convention, scheduled for Aug. 19 in Chicago.
Biden has so far dismissed any suggestion that he did so, but has also been unable to quell questions and concerns from fellow Democrats and the press.
The push for a virtual roll call ahead of the convention began in late May, when Ohio Senate Republicans tried to push unrelated last-minute amendments to a bill to ensure Biden would appear on Ohio’s November ballot. Since then, however, Ohio lawmakers passed a “clean” bill to protect Biden’s ballot spot, rendering the virtual roll call requirement less necessary.
In light of the controversy surrounding Biden’s candidacy, some lawmakers and DNC delegates have called on the party to abandon its virtual roll call plan and wait until next month to select a presidential nominee in person.
California Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman circulated a letter Monday among his House Democratic colleagues urging the party to end the virtual roll call process and wait until the convention. “It’s a game of supreme power to try to shut down the debate and jam it,” Huffman said. told the New York Times. The newly formed Pass the Torch group also released a statement Monday blasting the virtual roll call as an “irrational push” to ram through Biden’s nomination.
“The Democratic Party is having a conversation about the most important issue imaginable – what is the best path to defeat Donald Trump and win control of Congress. Stifling this debate and prematurely shutting down any potential reshuffle of the Democratic ticket with an unnecessary and unprecedented ‘virtual roll call’ in the coming days Giving is a terrible idea,” said Pass the Torch activist Aaron Regunberg
The question now is, should Democrats believe that Ohio Republicans are truly done playing games and whether the November ballot issue is truly resolved. The new Ohio law goes into effect on August 31.
The Biden campaign, DNC Chair Jaime Harrison and Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters all said Ohio Republicans shouldn’t be trusted and insisted the stakes are too high to risk the GOP falling behind somehow later this summer. They say the law, which is not already in place, creates opportunities for abuse.
“Trusting the Ohio GOP to do the right thing for voters is like trusting an arsonist to put out a fire,” Walters said in a statement to Vox, indicating A $60 million corruption scandal The state’s House Republican speaker since 2023 has been involved and the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional. seven times.
“This election has come down to nothing less than saving our democracy from a man who said he wants to be a dictator ‘one day’ — so we must not leave the fate of this election in the hands of MAGA Republicans. Ohio who tried to keep President Biden off the general election ballot,” DNC’s Harrison told Vox.
Republican leaders in Ohio say the ballot nomination is now moot and Democrats have blasted it to try to create more panic.
“The problem in Ohio has been resolved, and Democratic activists should stop trying to make Ohio a scapegoat for their party’s dysfunction,” said Ben Kindle, a spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. Kindle shared with Vox a legal advisory sent to LaRose Ohio County Board of Elections directors and board members on June 3 confirming that the deadline for political parties to certify their presidential and vice-presidential candidates is now September 1 – after the Democrats’ convention in Chicago.
A spokesman for Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine also told Vox that Ohio’s new law would ensure that any nominee chosen at the DNC’s August convention would appear on the November ballot. “The new law is designed to be effective in time to serve as legislative guidance for the Ohio Secretary of State to prepare ballots,” spokesman Dan Tierney said. “Every single Democrat member of the General Assembly voted for it [the bill]”
Biden’s campaign aides rejected the idea that the DNC was doing anything other than sticking with the plan party leaders decided on more than a month ago.
But the party failed to explain how Ohio Republicans could actually block a Democrat from appearing on the November ballot to ensure that a law is passed. With cautious primary voting without any clear legal justification, Democrats are risking further mistrust among the voters they need to win in November. Axios reported Tuesday A Democratic official briefed on the party’s plans said DNC leaders “rarely mentioned” internally Ohio as a reason for moving forward with the earlier nomination date.
Daniel Scholzman said, “The Biden-aligned force is making arguments that seem to refer to the Ohio law, but whose real purpose is very clearly to allow for a presidential reshuffle as quickly as possible and with as little drama as possible.” Dr. Johns Hopkins University political scientist Recently co-authored a book on weak political parties.
“That is, in another context, what we would call misinformation,” he said. “Reformers have been arguing since 1968 that the party process should be open. For much longer than that, the convention has become the pinnacle of party authority, with the National Committee merely a continuing body within the conventions. Virtual roll call violates these two core principles without compelling justification.”
How the virtual roll call came about
Ohio election law requires political parties to confirm their presidential candidates 90 days before the November election, but that date this year — Aug. 7 — falls before the DNC’s scheduled convention. This isn’t the first time Ohio lawmakers have had to pass special legislation to address the issue; They did it for Donald Trump in 2020 and Barack Obama in 2012.
Alabama has a similar 90-day rule, and this past May Alabama lawmakers A bill is unanimously approved to make sure Biden appears on the ballot.
LaRose flagged the issue of the designated deadline in early April. And in mid-April Ohio Republicans, who control the state legislature, agreed to pass a bill ensuring Biden would appear on the ballot. On May 7, an Ohio House committee passed A bipartisan bill out of committee To resolve the issue, the nomination deadline has been extended to August 23. Republican House Speaker Jason Stephens praised it at the time, noting that it helped both parties.
“Just four years ago, we had this problem,” Stephens told the Ohio Capital Journal on May 8. “The party in power in the White House usually goes last for the conference, so hopefully this will take care of that issue.”
The problems came after some Senate Republican lawmakers tried to push back Controversial amendment to limit outside spending State and local ballot measures — a move many experts believe was in response to Ohio’s winning abortion rights ballot measure last year. (Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights Raised three times As much as anti-abortionists.)
The proposed Senate amendment — which Democrats blasted as an unrelated “poison pill” — would bar political spending from outside the United States, require more campaign finance disclosures, and make it harder for groups to collect petition signatures. Although Ohio voters rejected another Republican proposal last August that would have made it harder to put the measure on the ballot, many GOP elected officials have claimed that outside spending is to blame for that result.
By May 23, the nomination deadline issue was still unresolved and DeWine publicly urged the legislature to reach a compromise. “Ohio’s time is running out to get incumbent President of the United States Joe Biden on the ballot this fall,” DeWine said. said in a press conference. “Failure to do that is simply not acceptable. It’s ridiculous; it’s an absurd situation.” DeWine then supported the idea of banning foreign spending from state ballot measure campaigns.
On May 28, amid all this chaos, the Democratic National Committee He made his decision to hold a virtual roll call vote by August 7, so they can resolve Ohio’s nominating deadline without relying on Ohio Republicans. By June 4, the DNC’s Rules and Regulations Committee voted to proceed, and on June 20 the entire DNC membership gave final approval for the virtual roll call process.
The DNC has two more scheduled meetings to finalize this process — this coming Friday and this coming Sunday Both meetings will be streamed on YouTube, and the virtual roll call may follow, as early as Sunday. The last possible date it could be held is August 7.
“We look forward to nominating Joe Biden through a virtual roll call and celebrating in Chicago in August with the 99 percent of delegates who support the Biden-Harris ticket,” DNC Chair Harrison told Vox.
Democratic Party according to party rules Still could replace Biden with someone else If he chooses to voluntarily step aside after the August convention, it will be a contentious process closer to Election Day. The new nominees will be chosen by the 435 members of the Democratic National Committee, rather than the nearly 4,000 convention delegates.
