Articles by Presidential Debate News

Five days after its stunning defeat in U.S. District Court, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to clarify and reconsider her order. Four days later the judge  responded - and not in a way that would make the FEC very happy. READ MORE: Federal Judge Issues Blistering Ruling Against the FEC In her new order, the judge reminds everyone that she found the FEC had "acted arbitrarily and capriciously and contrary to law by failing to notify respondents, failing to con...

Rules That Block Independent Candidates From Final Presidential Debates Now in Jeopardy; 2020 Election Could Open Up In blunt and highly critical language, a federal judge on Wednesday blasted the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and issued a ruling that lays the groundwork for removing the primary obstacle to a serious independent running for president in 2020. In her 28-page decision, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan said that, in rejecting a complaint by Level the Playing Field, a g...

WASHINGTON, DC – A federal court judge yesterday issued an unprecedented ruling that could open the way in 2020 for the first serious challenge in decades by an independent candidate for president. In a blistering 28-­‐page decision, Judge Tanya Chutkan told the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that in its rejection of a complaint by Level the Playing Field, a non-­‐profit group trying to open up debates to a third candidate, it had acted in a manner that was “arbitrary, capricious, and contra...

As we reported in our last letter, advocates of opening the fall presidential debates to a third candidate have received their day in court. Reporting by Bloomberg and other media on the Jan. 5 hearing stressed U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan's intense questioning of the defense attorney for the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Robert Bonham. The transcript, which has just become available, tells the story vividly. "I hate to jump right in," Judge Chutkan said to Bonham, as he was beginnin...

The Commission on Presidential Debates, or CPD, has been under fire for its policies for several years now. For the past 24 years, the CPD has excluded anyone but the Republican and Democratic nominees from participating in the three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate in September and October before the election. An important lawsuit, Level the Playing Field, et al. v. Federal Election Commission, goes before a federal judge on Jan. 5. That suit seeks to accomplish what the C...

As IVN recently reported, the lawsuit filed by the Green and Libertarian parties arguing that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) violated anti-trust laws was dismissed in federal court. Fortunately, the lawsuit to open the debates filed by Level the Playing Field (the successor to Americans Elect) and Peter Ackerman – joined by the Green and Libertarian parties – is still very much alive. Level the Playing Field’s lawsuit argues that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) arbitrarily a...

Editor's note: This article was written by Peter Ackerman, chairman of Level the Playing Field, and Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. It originally published in The Washington Post. The prospect of a White House run by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has reignited a critical debate about whether it’s possible for an independent to be elected president of the United States. Consid...

Matthew Dowd (who served as chief strategist for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign in 2004) certainly understands the political moment we find ourselves in. American voters feel like they are caught between the extremes of both parties, and while it should be inevitable that a competitive independent candidate runs for President, our political system is controlled by a duopoly doing everything in their power to prevent that from happening. It doesn't seem to matter to them that d...

A consensus has formed around the proposition that polling, especially in multi-candidate presidential races, has become inaccurate and unreliable.This judgment, rendered by respected experts, exposes the absurdity and corruption of the recent decision by the Commission on Presidential Debates to continue using polls to determine who will be on the stage in the fall of 2016. Jill Lepore's excellent article in the Nov. 16 issue of The New Yorker is only the latest in a series of authoritative p...