FOR RELEASE SEPTEMBER 29, 2015
Contact: Joe Hunter
Lawsuit
Challenging the Exclusion of Qualified Candidates from Presidential
Debates is Filed in Washington, DC
Gov.
Gary Johnson and Jill Stein Join to Demand Fair Debates
September
29, 2015, Washington, DC -- 2012 presidential candidates Gov.
Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, along with the Libertarian and Green
parties and their vice-presidential candidates, filed a lawsuit in
federal court in Washington, DC, today charging that the exclusion of
qualified candidates from the general election presidential debates by
the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) violates federal
anti-trust laws.
The lawsuit is funded by the Our America Initiative, a not-for-profit
advocacy organization, through their Fair Debates project,
https://www.fairdebates.com.
It
was
filed on behalf of the plaintiffs by the Our America
Initiative's attorney Bruce Fein, who served as Associate Deputy
Attorney General and General Counsel to the Federal Communications
Commission under the Reagan Administration.
The
legal challenge maintains that the Commission on Presidential Debates,
a private 501(c)(3) organization created in 1987 by the Republican and
Democratic national parties, intentionally limits participation in the
nationally-televised debates to the Democrat and Republican nominees --
placing other national party nominees at an unfair disadvantage.
According to the complaint, other candidates are excluded by imposing
arbitrary polling criteria, and the possibility of additional
nationally-televised debates being sponsored by anyone other than the
CPD is eliminated by agreements among the CPD and the two major party
nominees forbidding participation in other debates or joint
appearances.
The proposed remedy is that the debates include all candidates who are
legally qualified to serve and whose names appear on enough states’
ballots to potentially secure a majority in the Electoral
College. In 2012, that threshold would have allowed
participation, in addition to
President Obama and Mitt Romney, by the Libertarian nominee Gov. Gary
Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein, as well as the two parties’
vice-presidential nominees.
Announcing the filing of the complaint, Our America Initiative Senior
Advisor Ron Nielson stated, "A majority of Americans today do not
believe that either the Republican or Democratic parties represents
them. Yet, through the Commission on Presidential Debates, the two
major parties have seized and maintained control over the televised
debates voters see every four years, and have gone to great lengths to
insure that no candidates other than their own have the opportunity to
appear on the debate stage. This lawsuit seeks to change that, and give
the American people a chance to see that there are other real choices.”
###
NOTE TO EDITORS/REPORTERS: Our America attorney Bruce Fein will be at
the Federal Courthouse, 333 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC, at
10:30 a.m. ET Tuesday, and available for interviews.