PRO-DEMOCRACY GROUPS ISSUE
REPORT CRITICAL OF COMMISSION ON PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES
Open Debates, National Press Building,
529 14th Street. NW, Suite 1201
Washington DC, 20045
August 23, 2004
Contact: Chris Shaw (202) 628-9195
WASHINGTON -- Eleven pro-democracy
civic groups – the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, The
Center for Voting and Democracy, Common Cause, Democracy Matters, Democracy
South, Judicial Watch, the National Voting Rights Institute, Open Debates,
Public Campaign, Rock the Vote, and the Southern Voting Rights Project
– jointly released a report today titled “Deterring Democracy: How the
Commission on Presidential Debates Undermines Democracy.”
The report was released in the wake of the August 12th U.S. District Court
ruling ordering a Federal Election Commission investigation of the Commission
on Presidential Debates (CPD), and documents both how the CPD is unduly
influenced by the Democratic and Republican parties, and the harm to democracy
that results from the CPD's partisan practices.
The Report, which covers the CPD's performance since its founding by the
Republican and Democratic National Committees in 1986, documents how the
corporate-sponsored CPD implements and conceals secret contracts drafted
by the Republican and Democratic campaigns at the expense of voter education.
The Report addresses the “distressing consequences” of such “deceptive
major party control.”
“Candidates that voters want to see are often excluded, such as Ross Perot.
Issues the American people want to hear about are often ignored, such
as free trade and child poverty. And the debates have been reduced to
a series of glorified bipartisan news conferences, in which the Republican
and Democratic candidates merely exchange memorized soundbites,” stated
the Report.
The conclusion reached by the Report is that an independent, genuinely
non-partisan debate sponsor is required. The Report identifies the Citizens'
Debate Commission – which is comprised of diverse civic leaders such as
Heritage Foundation co-founder Paul Weyrich, Chellie Pingree of Common
Cause, TransAfrica Forum founder Randall Robinson, Angela “Bay” Buchanan,
John B. Anderson, Tom Gerety of the Brennan Center for Justice, Ambassador
Alan Keyes, former FEC General Counsel Larry Noble, and Jehmu Greene of
Rock the Vote – as such a genuinely nonpartisan sponsor, and the Report
concludes that “the major party nominees should participate in debates
proposed by the Citizens' Debate Commission.”
The Report is available at: http://www.opendebates.org/documents/REPORT2.pdf
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