The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), formed and controlled solely by the two major parties, allows voters to hear and see only the candidates of the Republican and Democratic Parties. It is a fraudulent cartel compromising the lifeblood of our democracy.

The option currently provided to voters is illusory. The two parties are virtually interchangeable on many crucial issues: the warfare state, the surveillance state, the incarceration state, and the Wall Street bail-out state.

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Differing views on key issues are silenced by the cartel's exclusion of others. The CPD’s rules limit participation to candidates supported by at least 15 percent of the electorate – a de facto exclusion of all third-party or independent candidates because of the Catch-22 reality that candidates denied the debate forum are unlikely to achieve poll results that would allow debate participation.

Debate inclusion is indispensable to fundraising, winning, or attracting sufficient votes to influence long-term major party policies. The influence of debates on voters is indisputable. Jesse Ventura initially polled at 10 percent, then won the Minnesota governor’s race because he was allowed to debate his Republican and Democratic rivals. Ross Perot’s numbers jumped almost three-fold after he participated in the 1992 debates.

Participation might reasonably be confined to candidates who have obtained ballot access in enough states to possibly win an electoral vote majority--an incredibly difficult and costly endeavor. Or if polls show that voters desire a candidate's participation, he or she should be included. Only one or two third-party or independent candidates would likely gain admission to presidential debates under these reasonable and manageable yardsticks. For instance, Ross Perot in 1996; Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan (whose inclusion in the debates was favored by 64 percent of registered voters) in 2000; Gary Johnson and Jill Stein in 2012.

More voters now register as independents than as either Republicans or Democrats, yet the CPD cartel has diminished our democracy by severely constricting the political dialogue.

Born in 1987, the CPD’s parents were the chairs of the Republican and Democratic National Committees. With the complicity of the major-party candidates, the CPD hijacked the debates from the independent League of Women Voters (LWV), which had organized presidential debates from 1976-1984. The LWV responded: “It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.” Walter Cronkite called the CPD debates an “unconscionable fraud” because “the candidates participate only with the guarantee of a format that defies meaningful discourse.”

Third-party and independent candidates, if they are heard, can make an enormous difference by setting an agenda favored by the American people but ignored by the two major party candidates. Ross Perot inserted budget deficits into the presidential campaign dialogue. Teddy Roosevelt, running on the Progressive Party ticket, cleared the path for the direct election of senators, women’s suffrage, a minimum wage, an eight-hour workday, unemployment insurance, and old-age pensions.

We represent third parties and their candidates in a legal challenge that seeks to break the Republican-Democratic presidential debate monopoly; to promote a diverse marketplace of ideas in presidential campaigns; to provide voters with a broader spectrum of choices; and to contribute toward the restoration of government of, by, and for the people that has been eclipsed by a corrupt private monopoly.

We are confident that the architects of the Sherman Act, who deplored private concentrations of massive, corrupting power, and President George Washington, who warned against the "baneful effects" of parties, would be cheering.

Fein is associate deputy attorney general and general counsel to the Federal Communications Commission under the Reagan administration, is a constitutional scholar, author, and lawyer in Washington, D.C. Anderson, former two-term mayor of Salt Lake City and 2012 Justice Party candidate for president, is a writer, speaker, activist, and lawyer in Salt Lake City. They are representing former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and other plaintiffs in a planned lawsuit challenging the CPD.