A message from Our America Initiative:
In 2012, four candidates for U.S. President qualified for enough states’ ballots to potentially achieve a majority in the Electoral College. Only four.
One of those candidates was Gov. Gary Johnson, nominee of the Libertarian Party. The others were Dr. Jill Stein, nominee of the Green Party, and of course, President Obama and Gov. Romney, the two “major” party candidates.
Yet, when it came time for the traditional — and critical — nationally televised debates, only Obama and Romney were invited. That is a travesty, and it happened for a reason.
In 1987, the Republican and Democratic National Committees got together and created a private, but official-sounding organization called the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Their stated purpose was to seize control of the general election debates — and exclude “third” parties and their candidates from participating.
They succeeded, in a move that the previous, nonpartisan debate sponsor, the League of Women Voters accurately charged would “perpetrate a fraud on the American voter”.
As you may know, leaders of the Green Party, including Ralph Nader, have protested this blatant Republican-Democrat debate duopoly loudly and consistently. So far, the CPD and its two-party bosses have ignored those protests and continued to use an arbitrary polling threshold to exclude any candidates other than their own. They have even gone so far as to require their own nominees, such as Obama and Romney, to agree in writing that they will NOT participate in any debates other than those sponsored by the CPD.
Today, with polls showing a majority of Americans do not believe that either the Republican or Democrat Party represents their views, the demand for fair, open debates has never been greater.
That’s why the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, Dr. Stein, Gov. Johnson and their respective 2012 vice-presidential nominees have prepared a lawsuit to challenge the CPD in federal court — a lawsuit that will show how the CPD violates anti-trust laws and unfairly limits voters’ choices.
Your support of this lawsuit is essential. The CPD is backed financially by major corporations with unlimited resources. The Republicans and Democrats will spend whatever they think it takes to protect their duopoly, and we must have the resources to prevail.
Wednesday, May 13, the legal team and key members in the movement, are hosting a Google Hangout to discuss the lawsuit, outline the strategy and talk about the need for both financial and grassroots support for this critical fight. It will begin at 9:00 p.m. ET / 6:00 p.m. PT.
You can join by simply going to – https://plus.google.com/events/csv8oi1sekdi5ukgl11pk23024k
We hope you will join us Wednesday night and learn more about our effort to literally change the political landscape — and give independent voices a chance to be heard on the national debate stage.
If you can’t join us Wednesday, but wish to learn more about the CPD lawsuit, you can do so by going to www.FairDebates.com.
We can win this fight. We have a strong case, and we have basic fairness on our side. But we can’t do it without your help.
Thanks, and we look forward to hearing from you!
