Democratic National Committee members on Saturday voted 222–137 to reject a resolution that would have effectively allowed the party's presidential candidates to hold a debate dedicated to climate change.



The contentious vote on the last day of the DNC’s August meeting in San Francisco follows months of growing pressure for a climate debate from Democratic presidential candidates and climate activists nationwide.

Earlier in the week, the DNC’s resolution committee voted through a resolution that was updated to encourage “candidates to participate in multi-candidate issue-specific forums with the candidates appearing on the same stage, engaging one another in discussion” — effectively opening the door for a climate debate. On Saturday, this resolution went up for a larger vote but ultimately was squashed. (A separate resolution more directly calling for a climate debate had been rejected earlier in the meeting.)

The calls for a climate debate originated in April, when Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who dropped out of the presidential race just this week, pitched the idea.

DNC Chair Tom Perez initially shot down the suggestion, arguing such a move would open the floodgates for other single-issue debates. Perez also warned that candidates who participated in a third-party climate debate would be barred from participating in the next DNC-sponsored one.