On November 20, the U.S. Court of Appeals heard arguments in Nader v Democratic National Committee, 08-7074. Ralph Nader had filed the case in 2004, arguing that the Democratic National Committee, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign, had filed 29 lawsuits or administrative complaints to keep Nader off the ballot, not because each of those 29 efforts was individually meritorious, but simply as an insincere means of depleting the Nader campaign’s resources.

The outcome is very difficult to predict. If the panel dismisses the case, it will probably be on Statute of Limitations grounds. However, since no trial has ever been held in this case (since the U.S. District Court had not allowed a trial), it is difficult to establish clearly that Nader has a problem with the statute of limitations. The matter of how the statute of limitations applies in this case depends on knowing certain facts, and those facts cannot be known without a trial.

Only 30 minutes had been scheduled for this hearing. But the judges took up the first 15 minutes of Nader’s attorney’s time asking him about the statute of limitations. Then, they gave him another 28 minutes to answer their questions on other, unrelated parts of the case. By contrast, the attorney for the Democratic National Committee only spoke for 15 minutes.

For the Legal Times Blog report on the hearing, see here. Thanks to Independent Political Report for the link.