Democrats are fighting over ‘virtual roll call’ to nominate Joe Biden before the Convention

The Democratic National Committee should drop its plan to nominate President Joe Biden for re-election before the Democratic Party convention next month, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said Wednesday, as the DNC said its early nomination plan is not as would proceed quickly as some Democrats feared.

“Fast-tracking the nomination process is not a way to convince the many unconvinced voters in the growing number of battleground states,” Doggett said in a news release.

Doggett is one of many Democrats in the House of Representatives who worry that the DNC’s plan to nominate Biden via “virtual roll call” before the convention is an attempt to blunt the debate over the president’s suitability for the job to cut.

The DNC first formulated the plan in May amid concerns that Biden would not appear on Ohio ballots due to a state law that requires parties to determine their nominees 90 days before the November general election. That meant Democrats had to nominate Biden by August 7, before their convention begins on August 19.

But Ohio lawmakers have since changed the law, leading some Democrats to question the virtual roll call plan amid concerns that Biden might not be the best candidate to take on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

“Trying to stifle debate and push this through is a power play of the highest order,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California). told The New York Times on Monday.

Huffman and Doggett this week began collecting signatures from their colleagues for a letter asking the DNC to drop the virtual roll call plan, which they warned could start as soon as this weekend.

On Wednesday morning, Leah Daughtry and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), the co-chairs of the DNC’s rules committee, said in a letter to their committee members that there would be no vote before August — but they were adamant that it had to be done to keep Biden on the ballot in Ohio and other states.

“We know that the Republican Party and its affiliated groups, such as Project 2025 author The Heritage Foundation, intend to pursue all conceivable legal challenges to the Democratic Party nominees,” Daughtry and Walz wrote. “It is critical that we have sufficient time to finalize our nominees and ensure they appear on ballots across the country. That is the driving reason for conducting a virtual voting process.”

In response, a spokesperson for Huffman said he would no longer be moving forward with his letter to the DNC.

“We are pleased to see that the pressure has worked and that the DNC will not rush this virtual process in July,” the spokesperson said. “We are not sending the letter at this time.”

Doggett said through a spokesperson that he was glad the DNC would not force a vote this month, but he was still opposed to a virtual roll call ahead of the convention.

“It would be a mistake to silence those who want to be heard before the nomination,” Doggett said.

Election law experts are skeptical that Republicans can actually kick Biden off the ballot.

“There is no indication that this would happen politically, and if it did, it seems almost certain that if Ohio tried to do so, a court would order Biden’s name on the ballot,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. , wrote on the Election Law Blog on Tuesday. “This instead appears to be a political move to rush Biden’s nomination through, amid calls from some Democrats to replace him on the ticket.”

Doggett was the first of nearly two dozen Democrats in Congress who have called on Biden to step aside since his poor debate performance against Trump last month.

“Shorting the normal Convention process puts the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives at risk,” Doggett said Wednesday. “With his gang controlling all branches of government, America is at serious risk of a completely unleashed Trump. After accomplishing so much for our country, this should not be the legacy for which Joe Biden is remembered.”