ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 2, 1996 TAG: 9610020053
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
A federal judge frustrated Ross Perot's hopes of sharing the debate stage with President Clinton and Bob Dole, ruling Tuesday that the courts had no jurisdiction in Perot's dispute with debate sponsors.
But lawyers for Perot and another presidential candidate, John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party, were granted an expedited appeal of the judge's ruling in order to try to resolve the issue before Sunday night's first televised debate.
Oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals were scheduled for Thursday.
``This means they're taking the case seriously,'' Hagelin said. ``... We're just trying to force the debates to serve their actual purpose: to expose the country to different views during election years.''
In dismissing Perot's lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan said his complaint ``should be with Congress and the regulatory framework it established.'' That means Perot must deal with the Federal Election Commission in seeking to force his way into the debates from which he has been excluded by the private Commission on Presidential Debates.
Perot already has complained to the FEC, alleging that the debate commission has broken federal law and asking that it be blocked from sponsoring the debates if he is not allowed in. But FEC spokeswoman Sharon Snyder said the agency by law must follow a complaint process that cannot realistically be completed by Election Day.
In declining to act, Hogan let stand the debate commission's decision that Perot should be excluded because he didn't have a realistic chance of winning the election. In the most recent CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, released Tuesday, Democrat Clinton was favored by 57 percent of those surveyed, GOP challenger Dole by 32 percent and Reform Party candidate Perot by just 5 percent. There was a 4-point margin of potential sampling error.
Exclusion from the debates ``makes it more difficult for us,'' Perot's running mate, Pat Choate, said after Tuesday's decision. ``At the same time, it gives us a terrific issue and a great example of how closed the political system has become and how outsiders are truly excluded.''
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENTby CNB