Lawyers ask federal judge to approve Nader lawsuit against former DNC chairman

MATTHEW BARAKAT
Associated Press Writer
Published: February 29, 2008

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - Lawyers for Ralph Nader asked a federal judge Friday to let a lawsuit proceed against former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, arguing that McAuliffe oversaw an unprecedented conspiracy to keep Nader off the ballot in the 2004 presidential election.
Nader, who is making his third presidential bid this year, filed suit in October against McAuliffe and Washington lawyer Steven Raikin. Nader claims that his constitutional right to run for office was damaged by two dozen groundless lawsuits in 18 states challenging his right to be on the ballot. The lawsuits were coordinated by top Democratic Party officials, Nader said, with the dual purpose of keeping him off the ballot and bankrupting his campaign with hefty legal fees.
“This is not how democratic elections is a free country are supposed to run,” said Oliver Hall, a lawyer for Nader, during a pretrial hearing Friday in U.S. District Court.
Dozens of lawyers were enlisted to wage what Hall called an unprecedented effort “to prevent a candidate from exercising his First Amendment rights to run for office.”
Lawyers for McAuliffe, who now is chairman of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, and Raikin asked U.S. District Judge James Cacheris to dismiss the case. While denying any wrongdoing, they said the issue is a moot point since the two-year statute of limitations on such cases has come and gone.
“It’s too late, and too little,” said McAuliffe’s lawyer, John H. Young.
Nader’s lawyer said the statute of limitations should not apply because the defendants conspired beyond the 2004 election to conceal their role in keeping Nader off the ballot. It was not until after the elections, Hall said, that Nader learned about the loose relationship between the Democratic Party and lawyers working with the Ballot Project Inc., an organization directed by Raikin that was formed to keep Nader off state ballots in 2004.
Young countered that McAuliffe and the Democrats were upfront and public about their displeasure with Nader’s decision to run in 2004 and that in the heated atmosphere of the general election it’s ridiculous to think that the efforts to neutralize Nader were concealed in any way.
Nader, running as a nominee of the Green Party, won 3 percent of the vote in 2000 and many Democrats blamed him for siphoning away enough votes from Democrat Al Gore to put George W. Bush in office.
In 2004, running as an independent, Nader’s name appeared on the ballot in only 34 states, and he won just 0.3 percent of the national vote.
Nader announced Feb. 24 that he will run again this year and said he expects Democrats again will seek to thwart his campaign.
“This time we’re ready for them,” Nader said.
Cacheris said he will rule on the motion to dismiss at a later date.
A similar lawsuit also has been filed in federal court in the District of Columbia. McAuliffe and Raikin’s lawyers argued that, if Cacheris rejects the motion to dismiss, he should transfer the case to Washington so the lawsuits can be consolidated.
Neither Nader nor McAuliffe attended Friday’s hearing.