Democrats Fighting Over 'Virtual Roll Call' To Nominate Joe Biden Before Convention

The Democratic National Committee should drop its plan to nominate President Joe Biden for reelection before the Democratic Party’s convention next month, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said Wednesday, as the DNC said the early nomination plan wouldn’t move as quickly as some Democrats had feared.

“Fast-forwarding the nomination process is no way to convince the many unconvinced voters in the growing number of battleground states,” Doggett said in a press release.

Doggett is one of several House Democrats worried that the DNC’s plan to nominate Biden via “virtual roll call” before the convention is an effort to cut off debate over the president’s fitness for the job.

The DNC first formulated the plan in May over concerns that Biden wouldn’t appear on ballots in Ohio due to a state law requiring parties to set their nominees 90 days before the November general election. That meant Democrats would need to nominate Biden by Aug. 7, before their convention starts Aug. 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 face Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

“To try to squelch debate and jam this through is a power play of the highest order,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told The New York Times on Monday.

Huffman and Doggett have been gathering signatures from their colleagues on a letter asking the DNC to drop its virtual roll call plan altogether, which they warned could begin 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 members of their committee that no voting would take place