I stumbled on this case while reading the latest issue of the Legal Affairs magazine. In Hagelin v. Federal Election Commission, the D.C. Circuit court of appeals upholds the decision of the Federal Election Commission, which permitted the Committee on Presidential Debate to exclude all third-party candidates from the 2004 presidential debates. In fact, third-party candidates were banned from the building. I am not kidding you - the ushers were given photo books with candidates photos.
From a legal standpoint, the decision seems to be a howler. According to the opinion, the Commission for Presidential Debates "is currently, and has always been” chaired by the former chairmen of the RNC and the DNC, that “the CPD’s Board of Directors is divided among representatives of the Democratic and Republican parties and includes elected officials from those parties,” and that at its inception the Republican and Democratic Parties billed the CPD as a “‘bipartisan’ organization created ‘to implement joint sponsorship of general election . . . debates . . . by the national Republican and Democratic Committees between their respective nominees.’” The stated reason for the exclusion is the flimsy "concern" that based on the chants of Nader supports "let Nader debate," Nader might disrupt the debates. Yet, the D.C. Circuit holds that the plaintiffs did not produce "hard" evidence CDP favors two major parties.
But the decision is also troubling as a matter of policy. Voters constantly complain about the lack of choice in picking candidates for office. The press from time to time bemoans lack of fresh ideas and / or lack of coverage devoted to third-party candidates. Yet, when we have third-party candidates with any kind of a following (even as misguided as Buchanan's voters), the voters do not get exposure to their ideas. I am not inclined to accept the media's usual explanation that it is a private for-profit business and, thus, needs to devote its "limited" resources to candidates that are likely to win. But I always expected the Federal Elections Commissions to be one organization whose mission is (or should be) to make sure the voters make a well-informed choice. Instead, FEC cheerfully upholds CPD's "tailoring" of the information that reaches the voters at the cruicial time when they are trying to decide who to vote for.
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