Alexandra Shapiro to Present Oral Argument in Case Against FEC
On January 5, 2017, Alexandra Shapiro is scheduled to present oral argument before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of Plaintiffs Level the Playing Field, Peter Ackerman, the Green Party of the United States, and the Libertarian National Committee, Inc., on their motion for summary judgment in their lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) and on the FEC’s cross-motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs’ motion challenges the FEC’s dismissal of two administrative complaints alleging that the Commission on Presidential Debates (“CPD”), the organization responsible for sponsoring the general election presidential and vice-presidential debates, violates federal election law requiring debate-sponsoring organizations to be non-partisan and to use “objective criteria” to determine who may participate in the debates. The motion also challenges the FEC’s denial of a related petition for rulemaking, asking the FEC to revise its debate-staging regulation to limit the use of polling as an exclusive means of accessing the general election presidential and vice-presidential debates.
Alexandra Shapiro, Chetan Patil, and Fabien Thayamballi authored the briefs in support of the motion.
The briefs are available in the links below:
Plaintiffs’ brief in support of summary judgment
Amicus brief of The Independent Voter Project in support of Plaintiffs
Amicus brief of FairVote in support of Plaintiffs
FEC’s brief in opposition and in support of cross-motion for summary judgment