Democrats are in an unprecedented crisis over who should be their presidential candidate.
But the party committee that governs the nominating process met Friday and proceeded as if everything was normal and its entire plan was not at risk of being upended at any minute.
As calls mount for President Joe Biden to step aside and let another Democrat lead the party into the November election against former President Donald Trump, the Democratic National Convention’s Rules Committee held a virtual meeting where the message to delegates was, essentially: Everything is proceeding as planned.
The meeting was convened to discuss plans for a virtual roll call vote to formally nominate Biden weeks before the convention, but no votes were taken or decisions made. Instead, party leaders used the meeting to inform the nearly 200 members of the committee about the process that is currently planned, which they had already laid out in a letter earlier this week.
The committee will meet again no later than Friday, July 26, to consider adopting the virtual roll call process, which would not be held until the first week of August.
The virtual roll call idea has plenty of detractors inside the party, but the only hint of dissent in the meeting came in questions about whether other candidates could be nominated for the virtual roll call (answer: technically yes, but actually, probably not). Otherwise, the virtual meeting was uneventful — despite starting moments after four more Democratic members of Congress called on Biden to step aside.
Party leaders like Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison spoke repeatedly about his excitement to “renominate President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris” and to promote the “Biden-Harris ticket.”
Leah Daughtry, a longtime Democratic rules expert and the co-chair of the Rules Committee, joked about trying to turn the committee members into “rules geeks” by the end of the process.
And convention Executive Director Alex Hornbrook, appearing from his office in Chicago with a large, red “Biden” banner over his left shoulder, gushed about the exciting events planned for next month’s convention and touted that the convention is credentialing social media influencers just like traditional reporters to help “tell the story of the Biden-Harris accomplishments” to young people.
The purpose of the meeting was to lay out the party’s proposed fix to a paperwork problem that has been causing some outsize heartburn for Democrats as they debate whether Biden should remain their nominee.
Parties typically formally nominate their candidates at their national conventions, during live roll call votes where each state weighs in (Trump was nominated on Monday in this fashion). But since May, Democrats have been discussing plans to nominate Biden weeks before the convention via a virtual vote, in order to avoid a potential legal issue in Ohio.
Ohio has an Aug. 7 deadline for parties to submit the names of their nominees for the ballot, but the Democratic convention does not start until Aug. 19. Similar issues had been fixed easily in years past, but the Republicans who control Ohio’s state Legislature resisted amending the law. They finally did, but waited so long that the fix will not go into effect until Sept. 1 — meaning the Aug. 7 deadline will still technically be on the books when that date comes and passes.
Ohio’s top election official, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, says the issue has been resolved and the discrepancy is not a problem. His spokesperson said Democrats are just trying to “scapegoat Ohio for their own party’s dysfunction.”
But Democrats do not trust Republicans and worry that waiting to nominate Biden at the convention could expose them to risky and costly litigation from Republicans. (Trump allies could still sue Ohio officials and insist that a judge rule Biden can’t be on the ballot.)
“Ballot access deadlines are not something to take risks with,” said former Biden White House counsel Dana Remus, who was also general counsel for Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Some Democrats have worried that the virtual roll call is an attempt to shut down the debate over whether Biden should remain on the ticket and essentially lock in his nomination. But Biden is already in firm control of the process.
Remus is now acting as legal counsel to the Democratic National Committee. And that role, and her presence on the virtual Rules Committee meeting, underscored how much power his allies have over the party.
As is typical for the party that controls the White House, the Democratic National Committee is stacked with handpicked Biden allies, chosen for loyalty as much as anything else.
And during the primaries, in which Biden ran essentially unopposed, he won 99% of the nearly 4,000 pledged delegates to the national convention.
Biden could still step aside and be replaced after being formally nominated in the virtual roll call, experts say.
“This doesn’t mean we’d be stuck with one person if that person isn’t willing to run,” Elaine Kamarck, a longtime DNC member and party rules expert with the Brookings Institution, said on a separate briefing for Democratic delegates Friday. “If they have a virtual roll call and Biden then drops out before the convention, the Rules Committee just goes back [and amends the process].”
