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and date of such debates for good cause with the
consent of seven members. All Vice Presidential de-
bates shall involve persons who are the Vice Presi-
dential candidates to qualified Presidential can-
didates described in paragraph (4). The format of
debates shall be decided by the Commission.
‘‘(3) PRESIDENTIAL
DEBATES.—Presidential
debates shall take place no sooner than 7 days fol-
lowing the preliminary debate. The time and date of
all qualified debates shall be announced no later
than 90 days prior to the first scheduled qualified
debate. The Commission may alter the time and
date of such debates for good cause with the consent
of seven members. The format of debates shall be
decided by the Commission, with at least 1 being of
the single moderator format. Presidential debates
shall involve persons who are qualified Presidential
candidates described in paragraph (4).
‘‘(4) QUALIFIED PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DE-
FINED.—In this subsection, a ‘qualified Presidential
candidate’ is a candidate for President of the United
States who is on the ballot in at least 40 States and
is the choice of not less than 10 percent of likely
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voters, the latter to be determined by the Commis-
sion taking into account only the polling data col-
lected no sooner than 1 day after the conclusion of
the preliminary debate.
‘‘(g) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There
are authorized to be appropriated to each Commission ap-
pointed under this section such sums as may be necessary
to carry out its activities with respect to the election in-
volved.
‘‘(h) TERMINATION.—Each Commission appointed
under this section shall terminate on the date following
the day of the election for which the Commission was ap-
pointed.’’.
SEC. 3. REDUCTION IN AMOUNT OF FEDERAL PAYMENTS
FOR PARTY CONVENTIONS OF PARTIES NOT
PARTICIPATING IN COMMISSION DEBATES.
Section 9008 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986
is amended by adding at the end the following new sub-
section:
‘‘(i) REDUCTION IN PAYMENTS FOR PARTIES NOT
PARTICIPATING
IN
DEBATES
CERTIFIED
BY
PRESI-
DENTIAL DEBATE COMMISSION.—
‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—If the nominee for Presi-
dent of the United States or Vice President of the
United States of a party receiving payments under
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this section does not certify to the Commission that
the nominee will participate in all applicable debates
scheduled by the Presidential Debate Commission
pursuant to section 323 of the Federal Election
Campaign Act of 1971 with respect to a general
election (other than a preliminary debate described
in section 323(f)(1) of such Act), the amount of the
payment to which the party is otherwise entitled
under this section for the nominating convention for
the following general election shall be reduced by the
percentage described in paragraph (2).
‘‘(2) REDUCTION
PERCENTAGE
DESCRIBED.—
The percentage described in this paragraph with re-
spect to a party is the amount (expressed as a per-
centage) equal to—
‘‘(A) the number of Presidential and Vice
Presidential debates scheduled by the Presi-
dential Debate Commission with respect to an
election that the party’s nominee did not at-
tend; divided by
‘‘(B) the total number of such debates
scheduled by the Commission with respect to
the election.’’.
Æ