By Thomas Hedges, Center for Study of Responsive Law

Editor’s note: The author of this article works for Ralph Nader, which presents an obvious bias. However, we think the story remains instructive, fact-based and of concern to our readers. The reporter contacted the Federal Election Commission for its side of the story, but the FEC declined to comment.

Ralph Nader is suing the Federal Election Commission for not investigating the law firms that allegedly worked on behalf of the Democratic National Committee in a coordinated effort to obstruct his bid for the presidency in 2004.

Nader’s attorney, Oliver Hall, met FEC representatives in the federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Monday morning to challenge the agency’s decision to dismiss a complaint Nader submitted in May 2008.

The lawsuit is the latest development in an ongoing struggle between Nader and DNC sympathizers who, he says, continue to harass him with litigation almost 10 years after the election. Among them are 53 law firms that challenged Nader’s nomination petitions in 18 states with the alleged intent of distracting the candidate from his run for the presidency. Nader charges that the Democratic National Committee coordinated with law firms as well as the Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign committee.

The FEC dismissed Nader’s complaint in April 2010, without serving it on any of the law firm respondents, on the grounds that the commission had no reason to believe the firms broke the law.

Nader argues that the FEC violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA), which requires the agency to serve his complaint on the respondent parties and conduct an investigation if evidence provides reason to believe they may have violated FECA. The FEC, Nader says, never contacted those who committed the alleged violations and ignored emails and other evidence demonstrating that the DNC and Kerry-Edwards campaign coordinated and participated in the effort to frustrate the Nader campaign.

In the complaint, Hall notes that some 35 organizers met at a hotel in Boston to plan the siege on Nader’s bid in July 2004. There were representatives from advocacy groups, law firms and the DNC, which paid for the meeting. The memo that came out of that meeting told leaders to convince Nader supporters that he was “in bed with Republicans.” That phrase was hammered into voters’ minds, Hall argues, for months until the election.

In August 2004, a representative from pro-Kerry group The Ballot Project, Toby Moffett, told a Washington Post reporter that law firms had provided some $2 million in legal services, which were never reported as campaign contributions.

Many DNC affiliates, such as Jack Corrigan and Judy Reardon, promoted and sometimes wrote complaints for law firms. In Maine, Democratic Party Chair Dorothy Melanson testified in court that the DNC officials had encouraged her to file a challenge against Nader and said they would pay for the costs of her lawsuit.

Some of the groups that aligned themselves with the DNC, Hall says, harassed Nader. They sabotaged his nomination petitions, disrupted conventions and falsely threatened petition circulators. One firm retained by the DNC, Reed Smith, has frozen Nader’s bank account since 2008, asking for $81,000 in litigation costs it claims it incurred in challenging Nader’s Pennsylvania nomination petitions. A grand jury investigation by Pennsylvania’s then-Attorney General Tom Corbett later revealed that state employees illegally prepared a substantial portion of the challenge at taxpayer expense.

The FEC, which has a stated policy addressing ballot challenges, has ignored the alleged abuse.

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