WASHINGTON – The Democratic National Committee has taken a significant step toward formally nominating Joe Biden as the party’s presidential nominee ahead of August’s Democratic convention – a move necessary to put him on Ohio’s ballot in the November election, States Newsroom was told.
DNC members ended voting Thursday to proceed to an all-virtual roll call vote after 360 members voted in favor, two voted against and five abstained, according to a spokesman.
In addition, the DNC will provide Democrats with an online portal where they can express their opinions, which they want to include in the party’s national platform created in advance of the convention.
DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement that during the first term of the Biden-Harris administration, “we have seen the incredible results that can result when democratic ideas are put into practice.”
“I am thrilled to announce that this year, we will be able to hear from more Americans and receive more input than ever through our testimony portal as we chart the path to the 2024 Democratic National Convention.” Harrison wrote. “We will build a platform rooted in the collective experience of Americans and mobilize people to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in November.”
Virtual roll call
In order to nominate Biden and Harris before the Ohio deadline, the DNC Credentials Committee and the Rules Committee will then need to adopt their reports to allow for a virtual call to formally nominate Biden and Harris ahead of the convention.
The DNC Convention is scheduled to begin on August 19 in Chicago, but in Ohio requires it presidential candidates are formally nominated at least 90 days before election day.
The DNC is also moving forward with plans to hold some version of the conventional roll call during the convention, although the party is eager to “build on the success” of the roll call vote held during the all-virtual 2020 presidential nominating convention, which was made necessary by the pandemic.
A DNC spokesperson told States Newsroom that the goal of this year’s nominations during convention week is to attract more Americans than the delegates who are in Chicago at the United Center.
Democrats, a spokesman said, want to revive elements of the 2020 roll call vote, which they called the “Roll Call Across America.”
In a completely virtual nominating event during the 2020 convention, Democratic delegates voted from historic and sometimes bizarre locations.
These include the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama, the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Railroad Station. in Delaware, a cornfield in Iowa, an art studio and community center in Louisiana, a cattle ranch in Montana, Biden’s family home in Pennsylvania, and a beach in Rhode Island where a chef held a plate of fried calamari.
Democratic Platform
In addition to working on Biden and Harris’ nominations, the DNC is preparing to build the official Democratic platform in the coming weeks.
A spokesman said the DNC plans to open an online portal on Friday that will allow all Democrats to fill out a form detailing what they want to see in this year’s party platform.
There will be a version in English as well as one in Spanish.
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The first meeting of the Platform Committee will be held on July 16, followed by a meeting of the Regulations Committee on July 19, and the first meeting of the Accreditation Committee on July 21.
These meetings will take place the same week that Republicans gather in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to hold their convention and formally nominate Donald Trump as their presidential candidate.
All DNC committee meetings will be virtual and streamed online for anyone to watch. Each committee consists of approximately 200 people from 57 states and territories.
DNC also on Friday announced 15 members of the committee developing the platform.
The list includes Chair Louisa Terrell, former director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs; former Department of Labor Secretary Marty Walsh; Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison; Ted Kaufman, who worked in Biden’s office in the U.S. Senate before becoming a U.S. senator from Delaware; Jeremy Bash, who previously worked as Chief of Staff at the CIA and the US Department of Defense; Rebecca Brocato, who previously worked as Biden’s special assistant and as the National Security Council’s senior director for legislative affairs; Marla Blunt-Carter, who worked as a project manager and director of electoral services in Biden’s Senate office, as well as a senior advisor and political strategist to U.S. Republican Lisa Blunt Rochester; Joelle Gamble, former deputy director of the National Economic Council; Josh Hsu, former legal adviser and chief legal adviser to Vice President Harris; Angela Kelley, chief policy and partnership counsel for the American Immigration Council and the American Immigration Lawyers Association; former South Carolina state senator Marlon Kimpson; Rohini Kosoglu, Biden’s former deputy assistant and Harris’s domestic policy adviser; Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power, a political organization focused on combating climate change; Jeff Peck, who worked for Biden on the Senate Judiciary Committee as legal counsel and personnel director in the slow 1980s and early 1990s; Bharat Ramamurti, former deputy director of the National Economic Council; and Hilda Solis, Secretary of Labor in the Obama administration.
The first meeting of the editorial committee will take place on July 11. It will be held virtually and everyone will be able to watch it on the DNC’s YouTube page.
Democratic National Convention Committee Chairwoman Minyon Moore said in a statement that in “the final sprint to the 2024 Democratic National Convention, we look forward to drawing on the wealthy diversity of our party and hearing from Americans of all backgrounds as we chart the course for the next four years under the leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris.”
“The strength of the Democratic Party is our diversity, and together we will build a platform that affirms who we are as Democrats and puts us back on the path to victory in November.”
