On October 29, Richard Whitney, Green Party nominee for Illinois Governor, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Chicago against WTTW, one of Chicago’s Public TV Stations, for sponsoring a debate and inviting only the Democratic and Republican nominees for Governor. The case is Whitney v Window to the World Communications, 2010-cv-7003.
In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Arkansas Educational TV Commission v Forbes that public television stations may not host debates and then exclude candidates who have a real campaign. The Court said candidates whose campaigns have generated appreciable public interest cannot be excluded. In the Forbes case, the Court ruled against the plaintiff-candidate, an independent congressional candidate in Arkansas, because he had raised almost no money, had no campaign headquarters outside his home, and few voters appeared interested in him. None of those things are true for Whitney’s campaign.
I think you are parsing words in the Forbes case. The Supreme Court overturned the 8th Circuit’s decision that a televised debate is a public forum, and then concluded that AETV had used a “reasonable, viewpoint-neutral exercise of journalistic discretion” appropriate for a nonpublic forum.
It was the lack of appreciable support for Forbes that was the real criteria for his exclusion. Forbes ended up at 2.5%. Whitney is currently polling around 3%, almost half of what Scott Cohen is polling.
What is the magic *appreciable* support math — in the so-called brains of the SCOTUS MORONS ???
ON ballot or OFF ballot
Write in or NO write in
Too difficult for court MORONS to understand ???
Polling is reflected by the chance of debating. Imagine a debate that has two rounds, the first includes all candidates, using the standard college debate rules, and the second includes the top n (e.g. 2) for a final debate.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision was very carefully worded to avoid suggesting that public TV stations should use polling data. Public TV stations are supposed to see how hard the candidate is trying.
I am not impressed with lawsuits brought on by single winner district power grabbing egotists!
If you want to see an election that works, 100 names elected with 1/101ths (or.99%) plus one vote each, with plenty of consecutively ranked names as back-ups, then you might be interested in investing your energy/time/fuel/ammo in such a way.
Trying to win in single winner districts, and then investing in lawsuits to perpetuate them, is like one individual going up against a concrete bunker with a bazooka. You may have a little luck, but it’s an ill-conceived, egocentric foray. Team players like myself really look down at such Terryl Owens types, that’s very bad for the team as a whole.
Working as a team, is more like 100 consecutively ranked equal units approaching from the left, the right and the center, with plenty of consecutively ranked back-ups who are automatically elected when one “stands down” or dies.
Hey fool! Don’t go there as a single unit!
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The Supreme Court did not specify how an appreciable level of interest would be measured, and its decision uses support and interest interchangeably. If the decision was worded carefully, it was simply to avoid delineating a particular standard of interest or support or a methodology of measuring that support.
There is nowhere in the Forbes decision that suggests how hard the candidate is trying has anything to do with his exclusion. The closest it comes is in a suggestion that a particularly inept campaign might result in a lack of interest; while an eccentric or candidate with non-orthodox views might be able to capture enough support to warrant inclusion. But that was simply to emphasize that a decision had to be viewpoint neutral. That is, a TV station could not exclude a non-mainstream candidate simply because he was unconventional, but only because that campaign had attracted little support.
You seem to be implying that Scott Cohen could be excluded from a debate, while Richard Whitney must be included.
Richard: Doesn’t the fact that the Forbes decision involved a state government-owned television network, while WTTW is an independent non-profit television station, make a difference here?
WTTW describes itself on its own web page as a “public television station” and has the PBS logo. Among the defendants are not only WTTW, but the Corp. for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service. I haven’t seen the complaint yet.
#7, In the Forbes case, the dissent would have made a distinction on the basis of the Arkansas educational television network being government-owned, but the court did not.
#8 The complaint places particular emphasis on the fact that the Green Party is an established political party in Illinois, and that the TV station is in effect promoting duopolism.
The particular claim is that the TV station is violating its non-profit tax status by promoting particular candidates or parties. It argues that there are no IRS regulations that establish a safe harbor for excluding candidates on the basis of polling data.
It also claims that the station is violating its FCC license by not providing equal time, and that the debate did not qualify for exceptions as a bona fide newscast, interview, documentary, or news event.
And finally, it claims that since public television (in general) receives 75% of its funding from the public sources, the CEO of WTTW is a public actor a violating the candidates free speech rights.
This is all BS. A publicly funded TV station should not be permitted to discriminate against any candidate who is on the ballot. To allow that amounts to election rigging. If there were 100 candidates on the ballot or something then it would be a different story but with only 3 there’s no rational justification.
It’s been a number of years ago but I still have a letter from the president of the local pbs affiliate (ketc9 in st. louis) in which he rejected the libertarian candidate from appearing in their televised US Senate debate. He asserted that our candidate, Jon Guze, “lacked newsworthiness.” (!)
I had gotten statements from republican opponent, Sen. John Danforth, and the Democrat rival each saying they wouldn’t mind having Jon in the debate. Jon (an architect and attorney) had an active campaign in this three-way race.
I organized libertarians and others to picket the station at the debate, which garnered press/radio/tv coverage in itself. In negotiations with that KETC president he finally allowed to air, days later but in prime-time, a 30-minute taped interview I did with Jon! (Though unfortunately we had to produce it ourselves and could not use their studio facilities.)
Another concession: during the debate getting the moderator to mention at the beginning, at the half-way point, and at the end of the debate that this was actually a three-way contest and that Jon is the LP candidate!
If the lawsuits are not successful perhaps this station can be made to do the same.
ken b. in st. l.
#11 There are 5 candidates on the ballot.