New Jersey has a law that the government will sponsor debates for any general election candidate for Governor who has raised at least $300,000. Normally only the Democratic and Republican nominees qualify. This year, 4 candidates qualified, including the Libertarian nominee (Jeff Pawlowski) and an independent candidate, Hector Castillo, whose ballot slogan is “education not corruption.”
The Democratic and Republicans have been invited to debate each other (with no one else participating) by a New Jersey Public TV station. However, it is likely that such a debate is illegal, under the U.S. Supreme Court decision Arkansas Educational TV Commission v Forbes (1998). Although the independent candidate in that case, Ralph Forbes, lost the case, that was only because the evidence showed he had a minimal campaign. The Supreme Court decision makes it clear that if Public TV sponsors a candidate’s debate, it must invite any candidate who is on the ballot and has a real campaign. Obviously, Pawlowski and Castillo do each have a real campaign.
Congratulations to Jeff Pawlowski and the Libertarians who persisted and raised the funds for him to qualify.
New Jersey leads the ethics parade?
Oh, come on now. This isn’t a great victory for 3rd parties. To determine eligibility on the amount of donations/contributions you receive is stupid. The minor canidate’s should have been included in the debate if they only raised one dollar.
I too would congratulate Jeff Pawlowski and Dr. Castillo, but would point out that Pawlowski, who is refusing matching fund also now available to him, took advantage of a loophole in the law. Pawlowski made a personal loan to the campaign and immediately repaid it after being declared a viable candidate.
It looks like the major party candidates are going to hold their own debate, leaving the minor parties out.
The Publicly paid for debates will only be attended by the minor parties.
The major party debates will be held on public telivision NJN, but we still don’t know if any public money will be used to finance them.
By the way, the same loophole with lending money was used by Steve Forbes on his primary campaign.
The NJLP lost a court case to prevent the Big two from holding their own debate on public TV using taxpayer dollars.
Two minor party candidates will have a debate at a later date also using taxpayer dollars.
The Major partys don’t want to be in the same debate as the minors. Being on the same stage helps minor parties greatly, not being on the same stage, means we don’t count.
We have judges who see no harm to minor parties in allowing public money to fund a separate debate on public TV. I would think it would be obvious.
See njweedman.com for another candidate,
but he will not be in the debate.