Democrats have had to act on a very compressed schedule recently.  This compressed schedule is caused by two things:  1) The sudden withdrawal of Joe Biden from the race on July 21; and 2) Ohio Republicans.

On the second issue, for almost five decades now, the tradition has been that, in almost every election cycle, the party in the White House has held their convention between August 15 and the week after Labor Day.  Despite this tradition, some states (including Ohio) have set a deadline for certifying the presidential and vice-presidential candidates before the end of August.  Despite this nominal deadline, in every cycle, these states (having made whatever point they intended to make) grant a waiver to any party holding their convention after the deadline.  This year, however, Ohio waited to long to enact a statutory waiver which creates an ambiguous situation.  Ohio’s new law will push the deadline to after the Democratic convention, but that new law does not take effect until September 1.   The current law, however, has a deadline of August 7.  So, if the Democrats wait until after the convention, their certification will be untimely under current law and then, maybe, become timely under the new law.  But that would require hoping for courts to do the right thing in interpreting the law, and, despite the guarantees to the contrary by Republican officials in Ohio, it is as certain as the sun rising in the morning that some Republican would challenge any “late certification.”

As a result, the Democrats have been acting as if August 7 is still the deadline in Ohio.  Thus, the virtual roll call for President will be concluded by 6 p.m. on August 6.  And Vice-President Harris has until just before the close of business on August 7 to name her vice-presidential nominee.  While  normally, we would expect to see this pick made on the eve of the convention (in other words around August 14-16), the pick has to be made within the next seventy-two hours. Continue Reading...