LWV Debate Watching Materials

In an election where candidates face off against on another over a period of several weeks or months, there is and opportunity for viewers to compare and contrast the content and performances of the participants throughout the series.
Here is some League information to help you

"LWV Debate Discussion Guide and Notebook: Debate Watchers Notebook, Debate watching 101,

More:
Top 5 Tips for Debate Watchers
Presidential Voter Guide
How to Judge a Candidate

LWV Archives of Presidential Debates The League converted its video library of 1976-1988 Presidential Debate footage to streaming media files as part of the LWV US Barbara Stuhler Library. The Debates are currently available in RealMedia format. You will need to download Real Media Player to view the debates and other visual media.



http://www.lwvsantamonica.org/Debate_Info.html

League Refuses to "Help Perpetrate a Fraud"
10/03/1988 | by LWV
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 3, 1988

LEAGUE REFUSES TO "HELP PERPETRATE A FRAUD"

WITHDRAWS SUPPORT FROM FINAL PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

WASHINGTON, DC —"The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debate scheduled for mid-October because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter," League President Nancy M. Neuman said today.

"It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions," Neuman said. "The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public."

Neuman said that the campaigns presented the League with their debate agreement on
September 28, two weeks before the scheduled debate. The campaigns' agreement was negotiated "behind closed doors" and vas presented to the League as "a done deal," she said, its 16 pages of conditions not subject to negotiation.

Most objectionable to the League, Neuman said, were conditions in the agreement that gave the campaigns unprecedented control over the proceedings. Neuman called "outrageous" the campaigns' demands that they control the selection of questioners, the composition of the audience, hall access for the press and other issues.

"The campaigns' agreement is a closed-door masterpiece," Neuman said. "Never in the history of the League of Women Voters have two candidates' organizations come to us with such stringent, unyielding and self-serving demands."

http://lwv.org/press-releases/league-refuses-help-perpetrate-fraud

32 Years Before SCOTUS Decision, Sanders Backed Gay Pride March

The day after the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage a constitutional right, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) assured an audience in Nashua, N.H., Saturday morning that he's no newcomer to gay rights.

Sanders' evidence? His 1996 vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as "a legal union between one man and one woman" and allowed states to refuse to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere. The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, husband of Sanders' rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton.


"Back in 1996, that was a tough vote," Sanders told his audience, according to The Hill. "Not too many people voted against it, but I did."

That was hardly the first time Sanders went to bat for LGBTQ community, according to records of his tenure as mayor of Burlington, which are housed at the University of Vermont Library's Special Collections.

When gay rights organizers planned Burlington's first-ever pride parade in June 1983 — two years after Sanders was elected mayor of the Queen City — they called on the Board of Aldermen to designate June 25 Lesbian and Gay Pride Day.



http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2015/06/30/32-years-before-scotus-decision-sanders-backed-gay-pride-march
and
http://www.queerty.com/32-years-before-marriage-equality-bernie-sanders-fought-for-gay-rights-20150719