On Wednesday, June 17, the New York legislature decided not to adjourn that date, but to also sit on Thursday, June 18, and possibly Friday. This will give more time for one of the bills on the timing of the 2016 presidential primary to pass. Those bills are AB 8251 and 8256, and SB 5958, 5959, 5960, 5961, and 5962.
Current law puts the presidential primary on February 2, which violates national party rules.
The Louisville Courier-Journal has this clear story on the difference between British national elections and U.S. national elections. The story points out that there are no primary elections in Great Britain. The story might have added that the U.S. is the only nation in the world with government-administered primary elections to determine who is nominated by various political parties.
The Hill, a newspaper intended to be read by congressional staffers and others interested in politics and the federal government, has this op-ed by Professors Larry Diamond and David C. King about the Commission on Presidential Debates. Diamond and King rebut the arguments used by the CPD in defense of the 15% polling requirement for entry into the general election debates.
If a reader clicks on the link, the article appears, then it goes into semi-darkness for about 12 seconds, and then it suddenly becomes readable, so wait patiently.
According to this story (scroll down a little bit), supporters of Ohio Governor John Kasich for President fret that he won’t be among the ten candidates invited into the main Fox Republican presidential debate. Fox News already said it would hold one debate with the ten candidates who are highest in polls, along with a secondary debate for those who aren’t in the top ten but who are at 1%. Those debates are set for August 6, only seven weeks from tomorrow.
On June 17, the Annenberg Working Group on Presidential Campaign Debate Reform issued this set of recommendations for changes in general election presidential debates. The Working Group did not come to a consensus on changing the rules on who may participate. But a majority of the Working Group recommends that the poll threshold for the first general election debate should be lowered from the current 15%, to 10%. The 15% would remain in place for the second debate, and the third and final debate would have a 25% threshold.
The Working Group as a whole believes that the debate sponsor should announce in advance which polls will be used to measure who can participate. It also believes that the rules should explain what will happen if a candidate is right at the threshold, within the margin of error. Thanks to Political Wire for the link. The New York Times has a story about the report, but the New York Times story omits any mention of the part of the report dealing with inclusion.
