A debate worth having?

One local election that still remains a question mark is the race for Mayor-President of East Baton Rouge Parish. The main question right now is whether incumbent Democrat Kip Holden (of whom I am a supporter, full disclosure) will win a majority of votes to head-off a potential run-off, most likely with his former BFF, Republican Mayor Pro-Tempore Mike Walker. One of the reasons the outcome of the race remains in question is the presence of two Independent candidates who are seeking the position: Gordon Mese and Steve Myers. Considering the resources deployed in the race, the two independent candidates have done a pretty good job of getting their message out through social media. Mese has an active facebook page and Meyers has produced a series of short “Myers Message” videos which were posted to YouTube and disseminated via email.

With that said, there has been some grumbling from the two Independent candidates concerning the planning and composition of candidate forums and debates. The criticism generally comes in two forms: forums being selective in their invitation and forums being cancelled. Most candidate forums are planned by non-profit organizations which are, in turn, regulated by the IRS to insure their activities don’t veer too much into political intervention (which can end up stripping a non-profit of its tax exempt status). The IRS periodically publishes guides to assist in navigating the Byzantine rules and regulations the service promulgates. While these are training guides and not intended to be cited for legal purposes, they do generally lay out the IRS viewpoint on certain activities.

Regarding the issue of selective invitation, Mese and Myers were both perturbed when they were not invited to a forum hosted by the Baton Rouge Apartment Association, a registered nonprofit. In an interview with the Advocate, Buddy Amoroso, the President of the organization (and soon to be appointed Metro Council representative), indicated that the organization had decided to only invite candidates that had raised at least $20,000 to date due to the fact that the format of their luncheon would be limiting. Neither Mese nor Myers had raised that much money at the time of the forum. The problem here is that one of the main IRS requirements to determine that a candidate forum is non-partisan is whether all candidates are invited. The examples given when limits can be placed on inviting candidates mostly come into play when you have a very large field of candidates, which is clearly not the case in this election. Taken as a whole, if your organization’s format cannot accommodate all of the candidates for an office when the field is of a reasonable size, you shouldn’t have one or you need to change your format. Mese or Myers would be well within their rights to register a complaint against the Baton Rouge Apartment Association with the IRS.

Regarding the issue of cancelled forums, the rules aren’t so clear. The only recommendation I could find was that a forum should be cancelled if only one candidate showed up (for obvious reasons). Beyond that, it’s the organization’s prerogative whether to hold an announced forum or to cancel based on whether candidates are going to show up or not. Two major Mayoral forums were cancelled this cycle due to the reported unavailability of Holden and Walker: the League of Women Voters and the Baton Rouge Press Club. Those are two of the most well regarded forums in the city. Politically speaking, it’s an unfortunate reality that a candidate with a large bank account balance or a lot of popularity is probably much better off if they don’t participate in a candidate forum than if they do. While forums provide the less well known candidates an opportunity for voters to get to know them, Forums give the well known candidates an opportunity to slip up, which might be reported by the media. To them, spending money on a flyer or TV advertisement is a much more attractive use of resources as they can easily control their message and avoid any solecisms (I went out of my way to find a synonym for “gaffe” as it has been totally overused this cycle). Is it a cowardly way out? You bet. Does it make sense strategically? Absolutely.

Well, I’m planning on a post-election post on Wednesday, so see you then. If you haven’t voted yet, get to the polls on Tuesday and do your civic duty!