Thanks to a challenge by Gary Johnson and Bill Weld a Judge ordered the Commission on Presidential Debates and the FEC to rewrite Presidential Debate Rules.
The Commission on Presidential Debates sponsored four prime time ninety minute debates in 2016 that were covered by nearly every news channel. It’s hard to quantify the value of that free advertising, but it was exclusively given to the Republican and Democrat nominees and withheld from other parties based on arbitrary rules. The Libertarian Party sued the Federal Elections Commission (which regulates the CPD) regarding that decision and labeled it an illegal in-kind political contribution made to the two parties by a purportedly non-partisan (and therefore questionably tax-exempt) Commission. Similar complaints had been dismissed before, but this specific argument (à la Bill Weld) hadn’t been tried yet. It worked.
Arbitrary benchmarks could be a thing of the past. What will that mean for the 2020 race? You might have to get ready to feel the Johnson.
H/T Kevin Bloom.
