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Third-Party Access

Supreme Court to decide public TV access question

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, March 17) -- In a decision that could affect public TV stations and third-party candidates, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether an Arkansas public TV network was within its rights to exclude an independent congressional candidate from a 1992 televised debate.

The court said today it would decide whether the Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN) violated an independent candidate's constitutional rights by keeping him out of the debate. A decision is expected sometime next year.

The public TV network invited only Democratic and Republican candidates, deciding that independent Ralph P. Forbes' participation "would detract from the debate's usefulness to its intended audience."

Forbes sued and lost at the trial court level in 1995. But the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision last year.

The appellate court said while decisions about a candidate's viability are routinely made by news organizations, it was wrong for government employees of a public TV station to make such decisions.

Whatever the high court decides, it will have no impact on private TV stations, only public ones. It would not, for example, have cleared the way for Reform Party candidate Ross Perot to be included in last fall's presidential debates. The case is Arkansas Educational Television Commission vs. Forbes 96-779.

In other cases, the court:

• Will determine whether Louisiana may continue to use its open primary system, in which all candidates run in an election. If no one wins a majority, then the top two finishers advance to a runoff, irregardless of their party.
• Refused to hear an appeal by anti-abortion demonstrators against a ruling restricting their demonstrations in Vallejo, Calif. A lower court has ordered the protesters to stay on the far side of a four-lane road in front of an abortion clinic. The demonstrators said that violates their free-speech rights because it keeps them too far away to express their views adequately.