WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- The commission sponsoring the 2004 presidential and vice presidential debates announced the moderators for those events Friday under the shadow of a court ruling that could call into question the commission's authority.
The ruling will not postpone the first presidential debate, scheduled for Sept. 30 in Coral Gables, Fla.
However, U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy ruled late Thursday in Washington that the Commission on Presidential Debates may have violated its non-partisan status by refusing to seat all third-party candidates in the audience for the 2000 presidential debates.
But Kennedy refused a request by Ralph Nader, Patrick Buchanan and others to order the Federal Election Commission to find the CPD in violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act.
Instead, the judge sent the case back down to the FEC for further hearings and a ruling that takes his opinion into account.
As a result, the decision is mixed, with a partial defeat for either side.
Nader, Buchanan, the Green Party and other third-party plaintiffs filed suit in Washington alleging "the FEC erroneously dismissed their administrative complaint (against the commission). Their complaint alleged that the Commission on President Debates "is a partisan organization and thus could not, and cannot, lawfully sponsor presidential debates, events that can only be staged lawfully by a non-profit, non-partisan organization."
The FEC is an independent agency "with jurisdiction to administer and enforce" the Federal Election Campaign Act.
The act limits how contributions can be made to political organizations but does have "safe harbor" provisions that exclude "non-partisan activity designed to encourage individuals to vote or register to vote."
Kennedy said the law's language means "the organization staging a debate is eligible under the safe harbor only if ... it does not advance 'one candidate over another.'"
The commission was formed in 1987 by the Democratic and Republican parties. Kennedy said the commission "allegedly receives millions of dollars from corporations and wealthy donors" without accountability.
Nader and his group filed their complaint with the FEC in June 2003, saying that the commission is a partisan organization chaired by the former heads of the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee.
As evidence, they said commission officials kept all third-party candidates and their supporters from the audience in the 2000 presidential debates.
The commission schedules debates only for candidates who register at least 15-percent support in a national poll, and none of the third-party challengers remotely hits that level. However, Nader's group is not challenging their exclusion from the debates in the current action; it is only contending that their exclusion from the audience reveals the commission to be a partisan organization, and therefore not legally authorized to conduct the debates.
When the FEC dismissed the group's complaint last March, Kennedy said, it cited a similar complaint filed by the group in 2000. That earlier dismissal was upheld by the U.S. District Court and the appeals court in Washington.
The FEC in March also accepted the commission's explanation fears of disruption led to the exclusion of third-party officials and supporters from the debate audiences -- Nader supporters already had broken into the commission's Washington office in protest.
But Kennedy said he was ruling that the March FEC dismissal "to be contrary to law because the FEC ignored record evidence that the CPD's exclusion of third-party candidates from the debates (audience) was unrelated to a subjective or objective concern of disruption, and was therefore partisan."
The judge conceded that the federal law does not require the commission to include the third-party candidates in the debate audience but said that did not make the evidence irrelevant.
Kennedy also said "the record does suggest that ... Nader and ... Buchanan" were legitimately excluded from the 2000 audience. Both had joked in television interviews that they might try to force their way onto the stage with the major-party candidates, Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
But just because Nader and Buchanan were legitimately excluded, Kennedy said, did not mean the rest were.
The judge rejected a request from the Nader group to order the FEC to follow a particular course within 30 days, saying he only had the power to send the case back down for a rehearing.
The FEC will have to conduct an investigation, Kennedy said, before it determines what course of action to follow.
"Plaintiffs will, of course, argue that the 'need for relief is urgent' because the first debate CPD will stage begins Sept. 30," Kennedy said. "However, even when a party requests urgent relief, under the belief that the Gotterdammerung of representative democracy is at hand, the court cannot require immediate action by the FEC that would force it to disregard (the federal law's) procedures."
Despite its partial defeat in court, the commission Friday announced the names of the moderators for the presidential debates and the vice presidential debate:
First presidential debate, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla., Sept. 30, Jim Lehrer, anchor and executive editor, The NewsHour, PBS.
Vice presidential debate, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Oct. 5, Gwen Ifill, senor correspondent, The NewsHour, and moderator, Washington Week, PBS.
Second presidential debate, Washington University, St. Louis, Oct. 8, Charles Gibson, co-anchor, Good Morning America, ABC News.
Third presidential debate, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., Oct. 13, Bob Schieffer, CBS News chief Washington correspondent, and moderator, Face the Nation.
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