[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: [usgp-dx] Court Approves Corporate-Sponsored 2-Party Dictatorship

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>The Orange County Register
>       Saturday, June 11, 2005
>
>       Court: Debates can bar third-party hopefuls
>       Ruling overturns a decision that sided with disgruntled presidential
>candidates.
>
>       By RICHARD KEIL
>       Bloomberg News
>
>       The bipartisan group that organizes presidential debates had the
>right to exclude consumer advocate Ralph Nader and other third-party
>candidates from the debates in 2000, a federal appeals court ruled.
>
>       The court, reversing a judge's ruling, said the Commission on
>Presidential Debates could exclude Nader, then the Green Party presidential
>candidate, Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan and other third-party
>candidates from the 2000 presidential debates and ban them from sitting in
>the audience at the first debate in Boston.
>
>       The candidates had complained that the commission violated FEC rules
>prohibiting groups that stage debates from supporting or opposing political
>candidates or parties.
>
>       The commission "acted not out of any preference for major-party
>candidates, but rather because it feared one or more third-party candidates
>would disrupt the debate," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
>said in overturning 3-0 a lower court judge's decision in the candidates'
>favor.
>
>       Nader had said before the Boston debate between then- Texas Gov.
>George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore that he should be allowed to
>participate or attend in person to watch the proceedings at the University
>of Massachusetts.
>
>       The third-party candidates, led by Natural Law Party candidate John
>Hagelin, filed suit in U.S. District Court, claiming the commission was
>unfairly biased against third-party presidential challengers, depriving
>them of "extensive television exposure and media coverage."
>
>       Responding to the appellate ruling, Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said,
>"The decision allows the backward march of the rigged, two-party
>dictatorship to continue, and be funded by corporate dollars."
>
>       A federal judge had ruled for the candidates, saying their exclusion
>from the debates was "unrelated to a subjective or objective concern of
>disruption, and was therefore partisan."
>
>       The FEC appealed that decision.
>
>       The agency said the third-party candidates didn't prove the
>commission discriminated against them.
>
>       The appeals court said the FEC and the debate commission have broad
>discretion in setting the terms and conditions for presidential debates.
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand