It is not often that you see Ralph Nader, Patrick Buchanan, Constitution Party candidate Howard Phillips and Natural Law Party candidate, John Hagelin on the same legal complaint, but one thing that third parties across the spectrum agree on is that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) hasn’t treated them fairly, or acted lawfully. The CPD, which has sponsored the series of nationally televised presidential debates every election cycle since 1987, is required to conduct the debates in a non-partisan manner, and therefore is allowed to accept corporate contributions even though corporations generally are barred from giving money to federal election campaigns. But the third-party candidates and parties in this complaint allege that the CPD has illegally favored the major parties to the detriment of the competition, is not a non-partisan organization and cannot be allowed to use corporate gifts to run the debates.

New evidence shows that the CPD, which excluded third-party candidates from participating in the 2000 presidential debates, also acted to prevent them from even attending the Boston debate where press, politicians and the public were gathered. It even created a "face-book" showing the names, parties and photos of leading third-party candidates so staff could stop them from entering the debate events, even if they had a ticket.

Armed with this new evidence, on June 17, 2003, third-party candidates joined together to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission to block the CPD from sponsoring the presidential debates in 2004 (Hagelin et al. v. Commission on Presidential Debates). Represented by NVRI and Boston attorney Jason B. Adkins, of Adkins, Kelston & Zavez, P.C., the candidates and third parties also ask the FEC to require the CPD to return millions of dollars in corporate contributions that it accepted and spent during the 2000 elections, arguing that the CPD is subject to the same ban on campaign contributions as other corporations.

More specifically, the complaint alleges that the CPD’s partisan conduct violates federal election laws requiring that debate-staging organizations be non-profit and non-partisan, and that CPD’s use of millions of dollars in corporate money violates the federal ban on corporate political contributions. The parties allege that the CPD provided the Democratic and Republican Parties and candidates with valuable campaign opportunities to the active exclusion of third parties. Thus, the CPD violated the federal ban on aiding or opposing any parties or candidates. In effect, as Nader observed, the debates have become "a tremendous corporate gift to the Democratic and Republican candidates."

In addition to the face-book, evidence of partisanship is bolstered by the fact that the CPD is led and staffed by high-level Democrats and Republicans, as well as the testimony of top CPD officials in another lawsuit in which they admitted to deciding to exclude all third party candidates from all national debate events in 2000.

The FEC complaint was filed by: the Natural Law Party and its 2000 candidate John Hagelin; the Green Party of the United States and its 2000 candidates Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke; the Constitution Party and its 2000 candidate Howard Phillips; and 2000 reform party candidate Patrick Buchanan. These candidates were all pictured in the CPD’s face-book and specifically targeted for exclusion from the debates. The FEC complaint and exhibits are available at http://www.nvri.org/library. The complaint asked the FEC to take swift action. The 120 days were exceeded on October 15, and the complainants are considering filing a federal lawsuit to enforce the election laws.

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