Overview

Despite its stated commitment to "providing the best possible information to viewers and listeners," the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) exists to secretly award control of the presidential debates to the Republican and Democratic candidates and to perpetuate the domination of the two-party system.  The result is diminished voter education and comfortable silence on critical issues of bipartisan agreement.

The co-chairmen of the CPD, Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr. and Paul G. Kirk Jr, are the former heads of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee respectively. Most board members of the CPD ardently believe in the "two-party" system and are unabashedly contemptuous of third-party candidates. In fact, the CPD was created by the major parties as an extension of the major parties.

Before the CPD's formation, the League of Women Voters faithfully served as a genuinely nonpartisan presidential debate sponsor from 1976 until 1984, courageously ensuring the inclusion of popular independent candidates and prohibiting major party campaigns from manipulating debate formats.

In 1980, the League invited independent candidate John B. Anderson to participate in a presidential debate, even though President Jimmy Carter adamantly refused to debate him.

Four years later, when the Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale campaigns vetoed 68 proposed panelists in order to eliminate difficult questions, the League publicly lambasted the candidates for "totally abusing the process."  The ensuing public outcry persuaded the candidates to accept the League's panelists for the next debate.

And in 1988, when the George Bush and Michael Dukakis campaigns drafted the first secret debate contract -- a "Memorandum of Understanding" that dictated who got to participate, who would ask the questions, even the heights of the podiums -- the League declined to implement it. Instead, the League issued a blistering press release, claiming that "the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter."

The major parties, however, did not want a sponsor that limited their candidates' control. Consequently, in 1986, the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee ratified an agreement between Fahrenkopf and Kirk "for the parties to take over presidential debates." In 1987, Fahrenkopf and Kirk incorporated the CPD, and for the next 18 months, they served as co-chairmen of their parties and co-chairmen of the CPD simultaneously.  Though it has been 18 years, Fahrenkopf and Kirk still co-chair the CPD.

In addition to their partisan ties, many board members of the CPD have close ties to multinational corporations; Frank Fahrenkopf is the nation's leading gambling industry lobbyist, and Paul Kirk lobbies for pharmaceutical companies. Not surprisingly, the debates are now primarily funded through tax-deductible corporate contributions, and debate sites have become corporate carnivals, where sponsoring companies market their products and propaganda to influential journalists and politicians.

The CPD demonstrates its subservience to the two major parties during the debate negotiation process. Every four years, the CPD publicly proposes a debate schedule and publishes candidate selection criteria. Questions concerning third-party participation and debate formats, however, are ultimately resolved behind closed-doors, where Republican and Democratic negotiators draft secret debate contracts. The CPD, posing as an independent sponsor, implements the dictates of the contracts, shielding the major party candidates from public criticism and lawsuits.  In fact, the CPD replaced the League of Women Voters as sponsor by implementing the 1988 Memorandum of Understanding that the League had so vociferously rejected.

In 1996, for example, Bob Dole and Bill Clinton hatched a deal that ruined the presidential debates before they even started. During debate negotiations, Dole demanded the exclusion of Reform Party nominee Ross Perot, even though Perot had received $29 million in taxpayers' funds for his campaign and over three-quarters of eligible voters wanted him included. Clinton, meanwhile, desired the smallest possible audience for the debates -- what George Stephanopolous called a "nonevent" -- because he was comfortably leading in the polls. As a result of their agreement, Perot was excluded, follow-up questions were prohibited, one debate was canceled, and the remaining two debates were deliberately scheduled opposite the World Series, producing the smallest audience in presidential debate history.

The CPD allows the two major party campaigns to exercise absolute control over the selection of format, thereby eliminating spontaneity from the debates. Candidates handpick compliant panelists and moderators, prohibit candidate-to-candidate questioning, require the screening of town-hall questions, severely limit response times, and limit or ban follow-up questions. The result is a series of glorified news conferences, with the candidates superficially glazing over the issues while reciting memorized sound-bites to fit 90-second response slots. "It's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates," said former President George Bush. "They're rehearsed appearances."

Ultimately, the public is left with manufactured, bipartisan pseudo-debates that conceal two undeniable facts: There is increasing demand for voices that challenge the bipartisan consensus on many critical issues in America, and there is increasing demand for authentic and unscripted discussion between the leading presidential candidates.

Open Debates has established a Citizens' Debate Commission to replace the CPD as national presidential debate sponsor. The Citizens' Debate Commission consists of national civic leaders from the left, center and right of the political spectrum who are committed to maximizing voter education. Following in the footsteps of the League of Women Voters, the Citizens' Debate Commission will operate with full transparency, employ challenging formats, include popular independent candidates and sponsor presidential debates that serve the American people first.