Democrats to meet Wednesday to hammer out timing on Harris presidential nomination
As the tidal wave of Democrats endorsing Vice President Kamal Harris to succeed President Biden as the party’s 2024 presidential nominee continued on Monday, the big question moving forward is when the party will officially nominate her.
That answer could come Wednesday afternoon, when the Democratic National Committee's panel that oversees the process meets to hammer out the timetable for the presidential nomination roll call.
In a statement late on Sunday night, the DNC's Rules Committee highlighted that with Biden ending his re-election bid, it’s now its "responsibility to implement a framework to select a new nominee."
And the committee spotlighted that the process "will be open, transparent, fair, and orderly."
The committee announced that its meeting would take place at 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday, and the proceedings would be available to watch on the DNC’s Youtube page.
The push to move forward with the virtual nomination of Harris ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which kicks off on Aug. 19 in Chicago, comes because of a ballot-access conflict in Ohio that was eventually corrected.
The DNC has previously said the roll call would not take place before Aug. 1, and a source with knowledge of the Rules Committee’s thinking told Fox News that date still stands.
Ohio's presidential nomination deadline for ballot access stood at Aug. 7, nearly two weeks before the start of the Democrats' convention.
In past election cycles, state lawmakers approved temporary fixes to shift the deadline. This year, the legislature didn't approve the fix – which moved the deadline back until after the Democrats' convention – until the end of May.
But the DNC – as of now – is sticking with its plan to hold the roll call by Aug. 7, in order to prevent any potential litigation by Republicans to upend the Democrats.
That's because it normally takes 90 days after a bill is signed into law in Ohio to take effect, and Gov. Mike DeWine signed the deadline fix at the beginning of June, which means it doesn't officially kick in until Sept. 1.