THE EPOCH TIMES
The Republican National Committee (RNC) voted unanimously Thursday to
withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which governs
the general election debates.
In a statement, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the commission is
“biased and has refused to enact simple and commonsense reforms to help
ensure fair debates including hosting debates before voting begins and selecting
moderators who have never worked for candidates on the debate stage.”
This vote comes months after the GOP threatened in a letter to urge its
candidates to not participate in televised debates unless the commission adopts
major reforms.
In the letter, McDaniel accused the commission of partisanship and “significant
errors” in its organization of the 2020 presidential debates between then-
President Donald Trump and then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The commission’s “repeated missteps and the partisan actions of its Board
Members make clear that the organization no longer provides the fair and
impartial forum for presidential debates which the law requires and the American
people deserve,” McDaniel wrote.
The reforms McDaniel has advocated for include term limits for the CPD’s board
of directors, adopting a “code of conduct” that would prevent staff from making
public comments for or against any candidate, committing to hosting at least one
debate before the start of early voting, and publicly disclosing criteria for
moderator selection.
The CPD is a nonprofit that was established in 1987 and has since sponsored and
produced presidential debates in all nine subsequent election cycles.
The commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Zachery Stieber and Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.