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The Courts Government News Politics

Libertarian Party Suit Could Mean A 3-Party Debate 305

Posted by timothy from the but-probably-not dept.
v4mpyr writes "The lawsuit initiated by the Arizona Libertarian Party against the ASU and CPD has been successfully scheduled for a hearing. If the CPD cannot present a decent case for excluding Michael Badnarik from a private debate funded by public sources, they will have to exercise one two options: Let Michael Badnarik debate this Wednesday or reschedule and relocate the debate. Either way it will be a major win for the third parties. The official press release can be found here."
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Libertarian Party Suit Could Mean A 3-Party Debate More

Libertarian Party Suit Could Mean A 3-Party Debate

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  • I seriously doubt the courts will allow this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dh2000 ( 71834 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @07:41PM (#10498545) Journal
    They'll just put off the judegement until after the debate
    • It is intended to be a quick hearing. Each party will only have a half hour to present their case afterwhich a decision will be made.

      I, for one, welcome our new Libertarian overlord to the debates.

      • I, for one, welcome our new Libertarian overlord to the debates.

        Look, this would be one issue where I would disagree with most of /. Do we really want every little minor party involved in our national debate? Do we really want a system like Europe or Israel where the mainstream parties need to make alliances with the little ones in order to govern effectively? Where if somebody blinks the wrong way they dissolve the Government and hold new elections every few weeks?

        The United States is not a Parliame

        • Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          It doesn't matter whether people want the Libertarian candidate to be included or not -- the judge has to rule on the case as the facts fit under the Arizona and US Constitutions, and state and federal law. The LP's case is pretty strong.

        • Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this (Score:5, Insightful)

          by SandiConoverJones ( 821221 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @10:08PM (#10499655)

          Would you really want 3rd party candidates, the candidates who clearly state their positions on the issues to mess with the Democrats and Republicans with their meaningless, but well rehearsed sound bites? What would happen, if in a a debate, a candidate took a stand? {gasp} Would our entire country fall to ruin? Or, might it force the other candidates to answer a question?

          Just where in the constitution does it say that we have a 2 party system, and that those two parties should be the Democrats and Republicans?

          As for the wasted vote argument, so you should choose your lesser of evils candidate, remember, if you choose the lesser of evils, you have still chosen evil. Vote your mind, and your conscience. If you always settle for a lesser of evils, how do they know that you are dissatisfied with the status-quo? Or are you happy with the lack of choice that we are suffering with if you only consider Kerry and Bush to be the only valid, viable candidates?

          How many people are on the ballot in your state? http://www.politics1.com/p2004-ballots.htm [politics1.com] this site should list who has ballot access in your state. In my state, Ohio, there were 8 names to choose from on the 2000 ballot. (If you don't believe me, I'll make it easy for you to check my facts: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos//results/index.html [state.oh.us] ) Why should the choice only come down to 2 candidates with 8 people who went to the effort to gain ballot access?

          The mainstream press actively avoids reporting on 3rd party candidates. When a presidetial candidate passes though a city 6 times during the campaign, and 2 daily newspapers, and 4 local television channels completely ignore the visits? People were there to greet the candidate, but not a press member to be found, hmm... this smacks of collusion with the press and the Democrats and Republicans.

          What we need to fight for is better coverage of the other people who will appear on the ballots of our respective states. If airing the news is an FCC required service of broadcasters, how about equal time for all of the eligible candidates? Oh Horrors! What a concept! Let the people hear of the people on the ballot before they draw the curtain? This would hardly be fair to the powers that be! People might consider voting for someone other than a Democrat or Republican.

          We complain about crooked elections in other countries. They can't get much more closed, and crooked than our own.

          • Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Slime-dogg ( 120473 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @11:43PM (#10500228) Journal

            It would go something like this:

            Badnarik: .......Something meaningful......

            Kerry: That's preposterous! My party's bottom line is to find and kill the terrorists with other people's troops, while ours can have dinner with their spouses.

            Bush: It's hard work, being president. The witch-doctor told me to "oooh eee ooh ah-ah, ting tang, falla walla bing bang."

            And the masses of American lemmings will oooh and ahhh with the two mindless dopes that are vying for control, and be upset with the stir caused by Badnarik. Yes, I'm a cynical American, and I hate the choices presented by the dems and the 'pubs.

          • Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @08:33AM (#10502249) Journal

            Just where in the constitution does it say that we have a 2 party system, and that those two parties should be the Democrats and Republicans?

            Just where in the constitution does it say that we need to have a Presidential debate at all -- let alone that every little party needs to be included in said debate?

            As for the wasted vote argument, so you should choose your lesser of evils candidate, remember, if you choose the lesser of evils, you have still chosen evil. Vote your mind, and your conscience.

            I don't consider Kerry to be the "lesser of two evils" vote. Perhaps you disagree with me. I genuinely like and support the guy but I suppose YMMV. As for the argument of "There's no real difference between the parties" I'm sick and tired of hearing it. I suppose it's good for a cheap +5 on Slashdot but if you bothered to read any major newspaper you'd see that there are huge differences between Democrats and Republicans on any number of issues including foreign policy, abortion, stem cell research, tax policy, the direction of our Federal judiciary, economic policy, military posture, missile defense, homeland security, religion in government, environmental policy, social security etc etc.

            These are huge policy differences but all people around here (and the third-party candidates) can focus on are the glaringly obvious mistakes that they both supported (DCMA) without even considering the fact that this is symptomatic of lazy Congressman who don't read bills or understand the issues more then any vast DNC/RNC plan to slice up the country.

            Now I've never suggested that a vote for a third-party is a wasted vote. I have suggested that if you are a Green and you truly care about your platform this might not be the best election in the World in which to cast that vote. Even the Green Party itself has said as much. If you happen to be a Libertarian then I suppose you won't like Bush (he isn't a true conservative by any means) and you certainly aren't going to like Kerry -- so by all means vote for your guy.

            We complain about crooked elections in other countries. They can't get much more closed, and crooked than our own.

            Really? Anyone with the right organization and name recognition stands as good a chance as anybody else of being elected. Ross Parot stood a very good shot until he foolishly dropped out the race only to toss his hat back in later. He wasn't excluded from the debates. He shot himself in the foot -- his was the best third-party campaign since Teddy Roosevelt.

            It would also be fair to point out that in American Politics (at least where the Presidency is concerned) the maverick usually loses. It doesn't even need to be a third-party person. Ask the John McCains and Howard Deans of the World how their Presidential campaigns worked out. McCain's loss you might be able to blame on the party establishment (not to mention the oh so lovely tactics Karl Rove used against him) -- but Dean had the effective support of large portions of the Democratic establishment and the primary voters still overwhelmingly picked Kerry. The mavericks and third parties do serve a purpose -- they set the tone of the debate and ensure that important issues (campaign finance in McCains case) aren't swept under the rug. But when push comes to shove the American people usually go with the mainstream and/or more experienced candidate.

          • As for the wasted vote argument, so you should choose your lesser of evils candidate, remember, if you choose the lesser of evils, you have still chosen evil.

            Not to mention, a political party only needs 5% of the vote to get federal funding in the next election which is a big step forward. The media *never* mentions that. If Nader, Badnarik or Peroutka could hack out 5% of the vote they would have a legit shot at the next election.

    • It's a request for a temporary injunction, and it's scheduled for the day before the debate.
    • If the debate were allowed to pass without a decision, wouldn't the Libertarians lose standing to bring the suit, or something? This doesn't seem to be a case where you can simply compensate the Libertarians financially after the fact.

    • Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @08:42PM (#10499096) Homepage Journal
      if they did that, wouldn't it put the election itself in questionable position of being 'fair' or not?

    • Or is it an "excuse" to cancel the debate? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @10:25PM (#10499751) Homepage Journal
      Don your tin-foil propeller hats, everyone...

      Woudn't the White House just as soon skip the third debate? But that would look bad. Aha, here are the Libertarians trying a court case - we can just let them spoil the whole thing, and we won't lose face.

      I don't think they'll let the Libertarians in on the debate.
      I think they'll cite logistical reasons not to move the debate.
      I think they'll cite logistical and timing (not enough) reasons, as well.
      I think they'll just cancel the debate - or let's say, "fail to be able to negotiate specifics for a rescheduled, relocated third debate."

      The debates have been at least in-part a matter of "Bush damage minimization," because public thinking-on-his-feet isn't his strong suite. Actually, there were statements up-front that the Bush campaign was going to try and define Kerry, just like the Clinton campaign defined Dole. At the very least, the debates give Kerry a chance to get up and speak for himself. Whether that damages him in your eyes or not, they are his words, and not the Bush campaign putting words in his mouth.

      I don't think anyone expects to see a Bush slam-dunk out of *any* of these debates. I don't think they really put the courts or Libertarians up to this. But I don't think they mind the thought of having the third debate get cancelled, in the slightest.

  • Yay! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Profane MuthaFucka ( 574406 ) <busheatskok@gmail.com> on Monday October 11, 2004 @08:01PM (#10498742) Homepage Journal
    Just because Libertarians can be really annoying at parties doesn't mean that they shouldn't have a voice in political debates. Count this Democrat as very pleased that the Libertarians may be included in the debates. This is tremendous victory for them, AND for our country as a whole. Inclusiveness is a goal that we have been moving towards for 228 years, in all aspects of our society. This can only be a good thing.

    Now, all I have to do is figure out a way from keeping them from bringing up Ayn Rand at my next party as they hang out at the punch bowl...
    • Count this Republican well pleased as well.
      • Count this Libertarian Very pleased (though, as a non-U.S. citizen, I'm watching this one on the sidelines).
        • Count this Libertarian Very pleased (though, as a non-U.S. citizen, I'm watching this one on the sidelines).

          Or is that "I'll be guiding this one from the sidelines".

          Ha! He said big-L Libertarian, not little-l libertarian. That proves that he's a member of the Libertarian Party, but he claims he's not a citizen of the US-- he's from Canada no doubt!! The international big-L Libertarian conspiracy has been exposed.

          "Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the big-L Libertarian party!"

    • Re:Yay! (Score:2, Informative)

      by Brandybuck ( 704397 )
      Just because Libertarians can be really annoying at parties doesn't mean that they shouldn't have a voice in political debates.

      Not all libertarians are annoying at parties. Some are like Linux geeks eager to "sell" their lifestyle to random party participants. Others have recently discovered objectivism and are actively proselytizing for their new religion. Others just have no social life. But most of us are just like anyone else. We go to parties to have a good time, and NOT to talk politics.

      Now, all I

    • Re:Yay! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bullitB ( 447519 )
      I wonder if you would be so happy if it were Nader who wanted to be number three in the debates.

      Most democrats weren't so happy about it last time.

  • The third parties are being censored! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by isotope23 ( 210590 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @08:08PM (#10498799) Homepage Journal
    I tried to submit this but /. rejected it

    At least FOX is censoring its guests. They cannot mention Badnarik on the air.

    I emailed one person in question directly here is his reply:

    I am the Muslim Outreach Coordinator for the campaign of the Libertarian U.S. presidential candidate Michael Badnarik. On August 20, a staffer for the O'Reilly Factor television show pre-interviewed me for an appearance to give an opposing point of view to O'Reilly's guest Muhammad Ali Hasan, founder of "Muslims for Bush." On the way to the studio to tape the program on August 26, however, I received a call from O'Reilly's staffer informing me that although I would be identified as a Muslim supporter of Badnarik, I must not mention the Libertarian Party or Badnarik's name on the air. I assured the staffer that I would not turn the segment into a Badnarik campaign ad, but objected that preventing me from mentioning Badnarik's name even once would muzzle my main point that one need not support Kerry to oppose Bush. The staffer insisted that I make the point without mentioning either Badnarik's name or that of the Libertarian Party. When I declined to accept these terms, the staffer had the driver they hired take me home.

    Another local Muslim with no connection to the Badnarik campaign, Khalid Turaani, was hurried to the studio to take my place. On the air, O'Reilly sought to rebut Turanni's criticism of Bush with criticism of Kerry. Turaani spontaneously replied that, as a conservative, he would never vote for Kerry and intended to vote for the Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik. Watching this turn of events at home, I was reminded of a verse in the Qur'an: "They plotted their plans and God made His plans, and God is the best of planners."

    Yours truly, I. Dean Ahmad, Ph.D. Bethesda, MD

    below is the link where i first found the story.

    http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/09/26/ed.co l.nathan.0926.html

    • Link (Score:3, Informative)

      by isotope23 ( 210590 )
      bad link, here is is register [registerguard.com]
    • If you want to learn more,

      get mirc (free chat prog)mirc.org

      The channels are #libertarian and #badnarik on EFNET
    • Wow, thanks for sharing that. I have always loved watching O'Reilly, and I can honestly say he's about the only thing I miss watching now that I don't have a TV. But if what you said is true, my respect for FOX News just went down the toilet.

      I support Bush for practical reasons, but there is a lot to like about Badnarik and America needs to hear about him. If FOX, claiming to be "fair and balanced" intentionally pulls that kind of stunt, they should be horribly ashamed of themselves.
  • ...seem to favor stories about parties whose chances of winning are statistically indistinguishable from zero?

    I'm not complaining about airing a diversity of views- particularly when the mainstream media won't- but the chance is >99% that a Democrat or Republican will control the White House for the next four years- so why haven't there been any discussions concerning the VP debates or the second presidential debate?

    Last time, the differences between the two main candidates weren't so obvious, but the

    • In the second debate, Bush and Kerry came down on different sides of almost every single issue.

      Considering that Kerry's mantra is "Vote for me, I'm not Bush!" that would seem fairly obvious.

    • Re:Why does Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by v4mpyr ( 185039 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @08:39PM (#10499070)
      One of my favourite 'wasted vote' arguments is as follows:

      Pretend you are in jail on death row. You find that you have a 50% chance of lethal injection, 45% chance of the electric chair, or 5% chance of escape... which would you vote for?

      Statistics has nothing to do with it. People need to realize that you don't have to vote based on who is most popular or who has the highest chance of winning. The point of voting is to vote for the person you think is right for the job, regardless of what your neighbor says.
    • >but the chance is 99% that a Democrat or Republican will control the White House for the next four years.

      YES! Exactly. You get it. Only ONE of them has a chance of winning. The people who say that Libertarian Michael Badnarik has no chance of winning have forgotten that on November 3rd either Bush or Kerry will NOT be the elected President!

      All the Repugnicrats are talking like it is their candidate who is going to win. Probably because if they don't they'll just complain about it for four years

    • Why not? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by TheLink ( 130905 )
      Slashdot posts stories about "fringe" CPUs too.

      Amongst: Intel, AMD, Transmeta, IBM POWER, SPARC, VIA etc, it's unlikely that Transmeta will "win". But it still gets more than its market share worth of "broadcast" here, whenever there's something remotely interesting going on.

      Having competition can help keep the regular winners from being lazy or even colluding.

      It's almost like having the American Idol thing but only giving the bulk of air-time to two competitors who the organizers think have the best cha

    • Re:Why does Slashdot... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Danse ( 1026 )

      The main problem here is that the voting system itself induces people to vote based on the popularity polls. They vote for the candidate they see as the lesser of two evils rather than voting for the candidate that they really want because they fear that they could end up splitting the vote between the two candidate that they prefer and thus the least-preferred candidate will win. If we would adopt a sensible voting system, then this wouldn't be a problem.

    • Helllllooooo? We all run linux, use metric, memorize Monty Python movies, and are away from the mainstream in just about every respect. Of course we like the idea of non-mainstream candidates.
    • Last time, the differences between the two main candidates weren't so obvious, but the choice is pretty stark here.

      If you think there's any signficant differences between Bush and Kerry, then you really have been brainwashed. There are differences on specific issues, but with hundreds of issues, that's hardly surprising. But when it comes to their underlying philosophy of governance, there ain't a dime's worth of difference between the two.

    • Re:Why does Slashdot... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Fat Cow ( 13247 )
      the choice is pretty stark here

      foreign policy - bush invaded afghanistan and iraq, kerry supported invading and iraq

      taxation - both keep most of the current tax code - kerry to raise taxes slightly on the richest

      gay marriage - both against it

      abortion - yep, i guess they're different here, although i had difficulty deciphering kerry response in the debate

      patriot act - bush proposed it, kerry voted for it

      IP law - no difference

      • foreign policy - bush invaded afghanistan and iraq, kerry supported invading and iraq

        Kerry supported giving the President power to persuade Iraq to give in to inspections, which was working until W blew it and went to war. Kerry did not support the war as it was executed by Bush.

        gay marriage - both against it

        True, but there's more to the story, as usual. Bush supports modifying the Constitution of the United States to specifically exclude a class of people from a right. This is unprecedented in the hi

  • NY Sun article: "Libertarians Win a Hearing..." (Score:3, Informative)

    by Moofisto ( 547662 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @08:53PM (#10499172)
    The New York Sun is running an informative story on the case [nysun.com].

  • For a moment (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @12:05AM (#10500380) Homepage
    let's look past the question of whether Badnarik should be allowed into the final debate. Let's ask ourselves what would happen if he were.

    The final debate was, by the original agreement, to be on the subject of domestic and economic policy. This is so far a subject which has gone mostly uncovered in the debates. Only the first debate was meant to be explicitly on foreign policy, but both the vice presidential and townhall debates were dominated by discussion of foreign policy, and more specifically discussion of Iraq. Both of these debates began with discussion of Iraq, and all the most firey and attention-grabbing portions were during the Iraq portions. The domestic halves of these two debates were a bit more cursory and did not delve into the details of economic policy.

    Meanwhile, economic policy is where the Kerry campaign's true strength is. It is easier to make the Bush campaign look bad over Iraq, but it is not in any way easy to make the Kerry campaign look good over Iraq. Economic policy, however, is an area where the Kerry campaign has a chance to make itself look actually good [economist.com]. Kerry can point to distinct policy differences and make a legitimate argument that these differences would result in real improvement. He just needs to grab the public's attention somehow. Since the last few weeks have been utterly dominated by discussion of Iraq both inside and outside Kerry's campaign, however, there has not been a chance for this to happen.

    Kerry has a chance to swing the national debate over to domestic and economic policy at least for a little while in this debate. Since Kerry did not begin to heavily harp on Iraq until shortly before the foreign policy debate, it is likely Kerry will take this opportunity. The debate also offers Kerry a chance to convince the country to briefly sit down and listen to his economic views. Meanwhile, the domestic policy debate offers no positive opportunities to the Bush campaign. The best Bush can hope for is to ramble about marriage and small business owners enough that he can distract viewers from what Kerry is saying; he has no points of his own to score. The question is not whether Bush or Kerry will benefit from wednesday's debate. The question is how much of Kerry's benefit from Wednesday's debate Bush will be able to blunt.

    If Badnarik gets his order granted, this becomes moot. The final debate will suddenly have an unplanned random factor plunged into it enough to totally disrupt the debate. Not only would Badnarik's mere presence in the debate be a distraction from the two candidates there, but his input and any obligation on the part of the major-party candidates to respond to it would effectively prevent discussion on the subject of which of the two major-party candidates would offer a better economic policy. Kerry could still attempt to outline his economic policy. Viewers would not pick up on it. It would be lost in the chaos.

    My conclusion: Allowing Badnarik into the debate would be a serious impairment to the Kerry campaign, and have little to no effect on the Bush campaign. The Kerry campaign would lose its one given opportunity to outline to the nation a major plank of its platform. The Bush campaign would neatly get to opt-out of a potentially embarrassing debate. This would be a disastrous result for Kerry's chances of winning and an extremely positive result for Bush's.
    • So in other words, because it could negatively impact the candidate you like, you think it's OK for the state of Arizona to spend $2 million in violation of its constitution?

      What about the candidate I like? I like Badnarik more than the other two. Regaurdless of the differences you cite in economic policy, it means big government. Bush is for big government. Kerry is for big government. Badnarik is not. Let him speak.

    • Re:For a moment (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pocopoco ( 624442 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @12:57AM (#10500649)
      >prevent discussion on the subject of which
      >of the two major-party candidates

      Have you even been watching the debates? The candidates pretty much have pre-worked out spiels and just go through them when a question is even close. Sometimes you'll notice they completely miss answering the question or end up repeating one of them and trying to hide it. There's no discussion going on here.

      Adding an "unplanned random factor" as you call it might get some decent telling responses from candidates instead of having us sit through more of the same "say what they want to hear and hide the rest" spiels as we've been getting in speeches.

    • Re:For a moment (Score:3, Interesting)

      by JimLynch ( 684194 )
      That's absurd. It's to Kerry's advantage to have Bush attacked from the right by the Libertarian. It's WAY past time for third parties to be included by default in these "debates." The green party candidate and Nader should also be there. Let's hear ALL of them and not just the Republicrats.

  • One of three things will happen (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mbourgon ( 186257 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @10:07AM (#10502947) Homepage
    1. The CPD will pony up however much the debate costs. They'll be reimbursed by the DNC/RNC, who don't want Badnarik shown at all.
    2. They'll move it somewhere else.
    3. They'll be ordered to pay $$$ to the Libertarian party. The LP doesn't want that, they want in the debate, but that won't be offered.

    Of course, that assumes that the claims aren't just dismissed out of hand, regardless of the law.

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