On May 9, the US Court of Appeals, DC circuit, heard arguments in Hagelin v Federal Election Commission. The 3 judges were David Tatl (Clinton appointee), Harry Edwards (Carter appointee) and Karen Henderson (Bush Sr. appointee). All 3 judges were very active in the questioning and all 3 seemed very interested in the case. The lower court had ruled that the FEC had to investigate the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is run by Democratic and Republican Party officials and which has always tried to exclude all non-major party presidential nominees from the debates. Plaintiffs in this lawsuit include John Hagelin, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan and Howard Phillips, all of whom ran for president in either 2000 or 2004 or both. A decision is likely in 4 months or so.
The Libertaian Party’s 2004 candidate Micheal Badnarik and the Constitution Party’s 2004 Candidate Micheal Poroutka should up their efforts to help open up the presidential debates to minor party candidates. I myself found out about the corruption surrounding the Commission on Presidential Debates only after reading the book entitled No Debate authored by George Farah the founder of the civic organization Open Debates. Visit http://www.opendebates.org.
Oh, and one more thing. When you log on to http://www.opendebates.org, there will be a petition on the website that you can sign.