The Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate may have been locked out of the upcoming televised debate due at least in part to incorrect information.
Last week, Chris Kline, president and chief executive officer of the Arizona Media Association, had said Green Party nominee Eduardo Quintana was not invited because he did not tally at least 1,239 votes in the primary. That is 1% of all votes cast in all primaries, the threshold set to be on stage with Democrat Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake.
Kline acknowledged there are fewer than 3,400 registered with the Green Party. But he said Quintana could have solicited votes from political independents to reach the goal.
But Quintana said that ignores one key fact: The Green Party runs a closed primary, allowing only Green Party adherents to cast a ballot. Put simply, he said, the debate rules written by the Arizona Media Association and the sponsoring Citizens Clean Elections Commission are skewed to keep minor parties out.
โI wasnโt aware of that,โโ Kline said Tuesday. โBut if thatโs the case, that would have been a Green Party decisionโโ he said of the closed primary, something over which debate organizers have no control.
Quintana said thatโs not telling the whole story.
He pointed out that the published rules at the time the Green Party made its decision to run a closed primary made no reference to having to get a qualifying number of votes in the primary to participate in the general election debate sponsored by the commission.
Instead, the rules say only that write-in candidates do not get to participate, wording suggesting that once a candidate gains ballot status, participation in the general election debate is allowed.
โWe didnโt get a heads up on the rule change until they implemented it,โโ Quintana complained.
Kline said he is sticking with his plan for the Oct. 9 debate. He said that having just the two candidates, who each gathered more than 400,000 votes in their respective primaries, is the best use of the 56 minutes the TV and radio stations in his organization are willing to provide.
But Kline may not get the last word.
State Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, is demanding answers from the Clean Elections Commission about how and when these new restrictions were enacted. He contends the rules are being ignored.
โAt worst, the commission has broken the law,โโ Hoffman said.
Tom Collins, the commissionโs executive director, declined comment on whether he thinks any rules are being broken. He said he will file a response later this week to Hoffmanโs complaint.
What is clear is that, until this year, general election debates sponsored by the commission included all qualified candidates.
Two years ago, for example, Marc Victor, the Libertarian candidate for Senate, was invited to participate in the debate along with Democrat Mark Kelly and Republican Blake Masters even though Victor got just 3,065 votes in the primary.
Part of what changed is that the commission ended its partnership with KAET-TV, the Phoenix PBS outlet, in favor of a deal with the Arizona Media Association. Most of its TV and radio members have agreed to air the debate, Kline said, as have digital sites run by newspapers.
But Kline said they are not interested in giving up more than 56 minutes, all time that would be without commercials โ and without the income that comes from them. So he said his organization reached the deal with the commission to limit who can participate with the new rules setting the 1% threshold.
None of this is related to a specific candidate or party, he said.
โThe message Iโm sharing isnโt about whether weโre trying to include or exclude the Green Party candidate but more about the fact that what we are trying to do is ensure that we have general election debates with a finite number of candidates based upon as fair a system as we can possibly find with the lowest possible threshold in an electorate with millions of votes,โโ Kline said.
He continued to insist there are โmultiple waysโโ candidates could have reached that threshold.
Kline said he canโt speak to the decisions made by the Green Party. โWhat I can say is that this is a guide we built for the whole election season,โโ he said. โThereโs been no attempt on our side to exclude any particular candidates.โโ
He is sticking with the 56-minute plan rather than extending it by a half hour, saying it is the โsweet spotโโ of what members were willing to give up.
โWe canโt have a reasonable general election debate if weโre trying to give equal time to candidates that receive 200 votes out of over a million cast,โโ he said.
In the end, something may have to give.
Hoffman contends the commission effectively repealed its rule on who can participate without going through the legally required steps of repealing the rule and adopting a new one. In fact, the old rule is still the only one published.
That raises the question of whether the commission can sanction and sponsor a debate that locks out Quintana.
โI donโt have the answer to that hypothetical because weโre already knee-deep into the general election where weโre executing these rules on multiple debates,โโ Kline said. Minor party candidates have not shared the stage in those debates, including one of candidates for the Arizona Corporation Commission.
He said it would be unfair to now change the rules going forward for the Senate debate.
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