August 31, 2009

Jerry Fitzgerald English, Chair
Peter J. Tober, Vice-Chair
Albert Burstein, Commissioner
Amos C. Saunders, Commissioner

New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission
P.O. Box 185
Trenton, New Jersey 0825-0185

Dear Commissioners:

I am writing to urge you to reject the application by the New Jersey Network to shift the date for the first official gubernatorial debate from October 1 to October 22 at the request of Governor Corzine.

New Jersey law compels the Election Law Enforcement Commission to deny NJN’s application and require the first gubernatorial debate to be held on or as close to the original October 1 date as possible. N.J.A.C. 19:25-15:52A requires that the Commission “shall review any change submitted … and notify the organization or organizations whether or not the change is approved.” Under the statute, “the Commission’s determination shall be based upon the degree to which the changes vary from the original approved application and the nature of the changes, including, but not limited to, whether or not such changes:

Are within the control of the sponsor(s).
Affect the interactive nature of the debates; or
Compromise the ability to maximize outreach to the voting public.”

The decision to proceed on October 1 lies entirely within the control of NJN and its cosponsors, Gannett New Jersey and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Mr. Corzine’s preference not to debate on or near that date is not a fact undermining NJN’s control, as would be a natural or man-made disaster, equipment failure or similar external events. NJN picked October 1, and did everything required with the Commission and the candidates to finalize that date.

Mr. Corzine is not legally obligated to debate, and his decision whether to participate in the debates, which he must make by tomorrow, September 1, will be based on his view of whether it is to his political advantage to do so. We believe it is likely that he will feel that the disadvantage of refusing to participate may very well induce him to accede to the original schedule.

However, shifting the debate from October 1 to October 22, which Mr. Corzine obviously believes would be beneficial to his political objectives, would undermine the intent of the law and the Commission’s regulations to make the publicly financed candidates available for interactive public scrutiny, and would compromise the ability to maximize outreach to the voting public.

Mr. Corzine’s request to move the debate from October 1 to October 22 would compress the entire debate schedule into less than a week because the legislation creating the lieutenant governorship would require that debate to be moved between the October 16 debate scheduled at William Paterson University and the new NJN date of October 22.

In a gubernatorial campaign that has been dominated by negative advertising and petty personal attacks, this shift in the debate schedule would prevent voters from being able to listen to the candidates discuss the issues face-to-face until relatively late in the campaign and would limit significantly the ability of voters to assess the candidates’ public performance over the usual period of weeks following debates.

Voters in Virginia, the other state to hold a gubernatorial election this year, have already had the opportunity to assess their candidates in one televised debate on July 25, and three more debates are scheduled between September 12 and October 12 - all before the first New Jersey debate would be held under the new schedule. Voters last year heard President Obama and Senator McCain debate three times between September 26 and October 15, with a vice-presidential debate on October 2.  Four years ago, Mr. Corzine and Republican Doug Forrester debated four times between September 20 and
November 1.

We believe that Mr. Corzine’s request to shift the debate to October 22 would not only compromise the ability to maximize outreach to the voting public, but is intentionally designed to depress viewership by putting the debate up against Game 5 of an American League Championship Series that usually draws very high viewership. It is a voter suppression tactic similar to that of spending millions of dollars on mudslinging advertisements that only fuel voter cynicism.

Furthermore, it gives Mr. Corzine, who spent $60 million of his own money buying a U.S. Senate seat in 2000, and $40 million more to win the governorship, the opportunity to overwhelm voters with a barrage of advertising designed to buy votes and poll numbers before he has to defend his record on the event stage that the Gubernatorial Public Financing Law of 1974 created.

We understand NJN’s belief that it would be better to have all three candidates debate, and we would like to debate both Mr. Corzine and Chris Christie as often as they are willing. We would have no objection to moving the October 1 debate a day or two in either direction to accommodate the governor’s schedule, and we are sure that Mr. Christie, who also is objecting to this change in debate schedule, would agree.

However, to allow Mr. Corzine to force the debate schedule so late in the campaign to give his millions of dollars more time to work should be unacceptable to every New Jersey citizen.

Please protect the integrity of this election and reject this application.

Sincerely,

Christopher J. Daggett
Independent Candidate for Governor