{news} Democracy Now transcript- Carl Mayer speaks of Nader's lawsuit againt the Democrats

Wed Oct 31 17:12:07 EDT 2007

Democracy Now, Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

*Ralph Nader Files Lawsuit Accusing Democratic Party of Conspiring to 
Block Presidential Run

*http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/31/145208

The lawsuit accuses the Democratic Party of "groundless and abusive 
litigation" to bankrupt Ralph Nader's campaign and force him off the 
ballot in 18 states. We speak with Nader attorney Carl Mayer. [includes

rush transcript] Consumer advocate and three-time presidential
 candidate 
Ralph Nader sued the Democratic Party on Tuesday for conspiring to 
prevent him from running for president in 2004. The lawsuit was filed
 on 
behalf of Nader, his vice presidential running mate Peter Miguel Camejo

and a group of voters from several states. It names as co-defendants
 the 
Kerry-Edwards campaign, the Service Employees International Union, 
private law firms, and organizations like the Ballot Project and
 America 
Coming Together that were created to promote voter turnout on behalf of

the Democratic ticket. According to the lawsuit the defendants used 
"groundless and abusive litigation" to bankrupt Ralph Nader's campaign 
and force him off the ballot in 18 states.

We are joined in the firehouse studio here in New York by public 
interest attorney Carl Mayer, whom the New York Times has described as 
"a populist crusader and maverick lawyer." We tried reaching the 
Democratic National Committee and some of the other defendants to
 invite 
them to the show but received no response.

Carl Mayer was part of the legal team that filed the lawsuit in 
Washington, D.C. Tuesday.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: Consumer advocate and three-time presidential candidate 
Ralph Nader sued the Democratic Party Tuesday for conspiring to prevent

him from running for president in 2004. The lawsuit was filed on behalf

of Nader, his vice presidential running mate Peter Camejo and a group
 of 
voters from several states. It names as co-defendants the Kerry-Edwards

campaign, the Service Employees International Union, private law firms,

organizations like the Ballot Project and America Coming Together that 
were created to promote voter turnout on behalf of the Democratic 
ticket. According to the lawsuit, the defendants used "groundless and 
abusive litigation" to bankrupt Ralph Nader's campaign and force him
 off 
the ballot in eighteen states.

We're joined now here in New York by public interest attorney Carl 
Mayer, whom the New York Times has described as "a populist crusader
 and 
maverick lawyer." We tried reaching the Democratic National Committee 
and some of the other defendants to invite them to the show but
 received 
no response. Carl Mayer was part of the legal team that filed the 
lawsuit in D.C. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Carl.

CARL MAYER: Thank you, Amy. Thank you for having me on.

AMY GOODMAN: Why are you suing?

CARL MAYER: To defend democracy. That's the title of the show -- excuse

me, is Democracy Now! And this was the most massive anti-democratic 
campaign to eliminate a third-party candidate from the ballot in -- 
probably in recent American history. It is -- not content with having 
all these laws and statutes on the book that make it difficult for 
third-party and independent candidates to run, the Democratic Party and

their allies in over fifty-three law firms, with over ninety lawyers, 
were engaged in filing litigation in eighteen states. They were to 
remove Ralph Nader from the ballot. It was an organized, abusive 
litigation process.

The core of the lawsuit is that these lawyers, led by Toby Moffett and 
Elizabeth Holtzman, and something called the Ballot Project, which was
 a 
527 organization, systematically went around the country and filed 
lawsuit after lawsuit, twenty-four in all, plus five FEC complaints, to

try to completely remove the Nader campaign from the ballot and to, in 
effect, bankrupt the campaign, which they succeeded in doing. Not 
content with that, one of the defendants, Reed Smith, which is a large 
corporate law firm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, they are now going
 after 
Ralph Nader's personal bank account to make him pay some of the cost of

this litigation.

And, understand, despite being outspent by the Democratic Party and its

affiliated lawyers, the vast majority of these lawsuits were won by the

Nader campaign, which was a largely volunteer effort. And these
 lawsuits 
were won across the country, despite this organized effort of 
intimidation and harassment. It's basically abusive process and 
malicious prosecution. Those are common law torts. And it was very
 clear 
from the beginning that the Democratic Party was using the legal system

for an improper purpose. In fact, Toby Moffett, who's a former 
congressman from Connecticut, said directly to The Guardian of London
 in 
an interview in December of 2004, this wasn't about the law. "I'd be 
less than honest if I said" this was not about the law; this was about 
getting Ralph Nader off the ballot. And that's what this effort was 
about. And it's a shameful anti-democratic process by a party that 
claims to be a democratic party.

And on top of that, the Democratic Party, or its allies, filed five FEC

complaints against the campaign, alleging improper --

AMY GOODMAN: Federal Election Commission.

CARL MAYER: The Federal Election Commission -- alleging improper 
funding, improper finances, etc. They were all dismissed by the FEC.

Now, let me tell you how bad it got. There was an organized effort of 
harassment of petitioners who went around trying to collect signatures 
for the Nader campaign in Ohio, in Oregon and in Pennsylvania. In Ohio,

for example, lawyers were hired to call up petitioners and tell them 
that if they didn't verify the signatures on the petition, they would
 be 
guilty of a felony. They were called at home by -- and they were, in 
many cases, visited by private investigators and told -- this is voter 
intimidation of the worst order.

In the state of Oregon, for example, there was a nominating convention,

and you need a thousand signatures at the convention. We have emails 
from Democratic Party operatives stating, we want our people to go to 
this convention and then refuse to sign the petition at the convention 
so Nader will not get enough signatures at the convention to get on the

ballot. And they accomplished their goal in Oregon. After the 
convention, there's an alternative way of getting on the ballot, which 
is to collect signatures, and the Nader campaign went about doing that,

and during the course of that there was further harassment and 
intimidation of petitioners by law firms, private investigators,
 calling 
up and threatening petitioners that they would be called before a court

if they did not certify all the petitions.

AMY GOODMAN: How did the Service Employees International Union fit into

this? Why are they being sued?

CARL MAYER: Well, the SEIU very clearly, in emails and on their
 website, 
the SEIU had a project, which was called ACT, or Americans Coming 
Together. There were several 527 groups; these are independent 
expenditure groups. And the SEIU was involved in them. The SEIU was 
involved in trying to keep Nader off the ballot by using its members, 
for example in Oregon, to go into the convention, but in other states
 -- 
in other states, to try to actually void petitions by signing in the 
wrong place. The complaint -- and this is all documented. It's a 
seventy-three-page complaint, over 250 paragraphs, chapter and verse, 
about how, for example, the SEIU came up with the strategy of getting 
its members to go and write signatures in the wrong place on a
 petition, 
on Nader's petitions, which would then invalidate the entire petition. 
So this was a coordinated anti-democratic activity, which in my view
 has 
little precedent in American history, and any third-party candidate of 
whatever stripe -- leftwing, rightwing, populist, conservative -- they 
should be outraged by what occurred in this case.

And we think we have a tremendous case before the D.C. Superior Court 
and other legal actions we will take, because this conspiracy was so --

they were so adamant and vociferous about it, and the paper trail is 
very clear. And we're not even into discovery. We can't wait to take
 the 
depositions of the party activists, Toby Moffett, Terry McAuliffe, 
Elizabeth Holtzman, etc., who were at the center of this. In fact, the 
center of this effort was something called the Ballot Project, which
 was 
started by Robert Brandon, who's one of the defendants, and he's a 
consultant to the Democratic Party. And he held a meeting at the 
Democratic Convention in 2004 with Moffett, Holtzman and a group of 
other high-ranking Democrats, and they said, our purpose is to keep 
Nader off the ballot. And they went, and they proceeded to do it, 
spending millions of dollars.

AMY GOODMAN: What impact will all this have on Ralph Nader now? He has 
said that if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, he will run for

president. It looks like she is the frontrunner right now.

CARL MAYER: Well, in terms of 2008, I can't speak to 2008. And in 
politics, things can change quite quickly. I mean, it's entirely 
possible that the actual progressive base of the Democratic Party will 
seek a nominee that reflects their views, which is that America should 
end this war in Iraq. It hasn't been the history of the Democratic 
Party, but it's way too early to talk about that.

But what this lawsuit will do, and the importance of it is, is to set a

precedent so that the two-party monopoly system that shuts out minor 
parties in a way that other Western democracies never do, that this
 will 
set a precedent to prevent this type of intimidation and harassment. 
That's the goal of the lawsuit. It doesn't matter whether it's Ralph 
Nader or Michael Bloomberg or any other third-party candidate. The
 point 
is, we need as much competition in the political arena as we have in 
other areas of American life. And it's time to stop rigging the game.

And what's unbelievable is that the laws on the books already pose a 
tremendously high hurdle for third-party candidates. Tens of thousands 
of signatures, it takes, to get on the ballot in states like Texas and 
the Carolinas. And there's no other country where it's so difficult to 
get on the ballot. And those laws are passed by the Democrat and 
Republican Party to preserve their monopoly. So, "democracy now" -- 
"democracy now" is not even close. We are not close to a state of
 democracy.

And recall also that in the history of the country, third parties were 
very important. In the nineteenth century, it was much easier to get on

the ballot. The smaller third parties championed first important issues

like ending slavery, women's right to vote, Social Security; those were

all first advocated by third parties. And if you exclude third parties 
from the ballot and from the debate, our democracy withers and 
atrophies. And it is not at all consistent with the vital democratic 
traditions of our country.

These third parties were around since the beginning of the Republic.
 The 
first third party was really the -- well, in some respects, was the 
Anti-Federalist Party, but there was also something called the 
Anti-Freemason Party, which was started in 1800. From the beginning of 
the Republic, there were important third parties, which raised
 important 
issues. And we're now snuffing that out. And unless we fight for this, 
this country will continue to have essentially a monopolistic position 
on every issue, from healthcare to the Iraq war to any of the important

issues that so many people in this country care about.

AMY GOODMAN: Carl Mayer, we have to leave it there, but we will 
certainly continue to follow this lawsuit. Carl Mayer is one of the
 lead 
attorneys on this lawsuit against the Democratic Party and others who 
they say conspired to keep former presidential candidate Ralph Nader
 off 
of the ballot.

------------------------------

***********************************************************************
  Tim McKee
  Manchester CT
  Home-860-643-2282
  Cell-860-778-1304
  Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT.
  BLOG- http://timmckee2008.blogspot.com/

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