Nader sues over debate exclusion

By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff, 10/18/2000

alph Nader filed a federal civil rights suit yesterday against the Commission on Presidential Debates and a state trooper for refusing to let him attend the recent presidential debate at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, even though he had a ticket.

The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Boston, alleges that Nader was confronted by a security consultant for the commission and three state troopers when he got off a shuttle bus outside the school on Oct. 3. The lawsuit claims he was told, ''It's already been decided that, whether or not you have a ticket, you are not invited.''

Nader alleges officers threatened to arrest him if he didn't leave the area and wouldn't let him go to a Fox News trailer on campus, where he was scheduled to be interviewed on television after the debate.

''It's illegal to exclude someone from an event that's open to the public because of their political beliefs,'' said attorney Howard Friedman, who filed the lawsuit on Nader's behalf against the commission, commission cochairmen Paul G. Kirk Jr. and Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., commission security consultant John Vezeris, and Massachusetts State Police Sergeant Charles McPhail.

The suit alleges Nader was excluded because he was critical of the commission for allowing only Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush of Texas to participate in the debate.

A spokesman for the commission declined to comment yesterday.

SHELLEY MURPHY