Fulani v. Brady

• Decision Date: 05 January 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92 Civ. 0998 (RWS),92 Civ. 0998 (RWS)
• Parties: Dr. Lenora B. FULANI and Lenora B. Fulani For President, Plaintiffs, v. Nicholas F. BRADY, Secretary of the Treasury, Shirley D. Peterson, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and League of Women Voters Education Fund, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

809 F. Supp. 1112

Dr. Lenora B. FULANI and Lenora B. Fulani For President, Plaintiffs, v. Nicholas F. BRADY, Secretary of the Treasury, Shirley D. Peterson, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and League of Women Voters Education Fund, Defendants.

No. 92 Civ. 0998 (RWS)

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

January 5, 1993.

Arthur R. Block, New York City, for plaintiffs.

Otto G. Obermaier, U.S. Atty. S.D.N.Y. by Kay K. Gardiner, Asst. U.S. Atty., of counsel, New York City, for federal defendants.

Arnold & Porter by Michael D. Schissel, of counsel, New York City, for defendant League of Women Voters Educ. Fund.

OPINION

SWEET, District Judge.

The Defendants Nicholas F. Brady and Shirley D. Peterson (collectively, the "Federal Defendants"), joined by the Defendant League of Women Voters Education Fund (the "League"), have moved pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) and (6), Fed.R.Civ.P., for an order dismissing the First Amended Complaint (the "Amended Complaint") of Plaintiffs Lenora B. Fulani and Lenora B. Fulani for President (collectively, "Fulani") for lack of subject matter jurisdiction or, in the alternative, for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. For the reasons set forth below, the Defendants' 12(b)(1) motion is denied, but their 12(b)(6) motion is granted and the Amended Complaint is dismissed.

The Parties

Plaintiff Lenora B. Fulani is a self-described national political leader with a core constituency of African-American citizens. She is the chairperson of the New Alliance party and was the first woman and the first African-American to be on the ballot in each of the fifty states. Plaintiff Lenora B. Fulani for President is the political organization that ran Fulani's 1992 presidential campaign.

Defendant Nicholas F. Brady is the Secretary of the Treasury and Defendant Shirley D. Peterson is the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.

Defendant League of Women Voters (the "League") is a private, not-for-profit charitable trust established by the League of Women Voters of the United States ("LWVUS") in the District of Columbia in 1957 and devoted exclusively to educational purposes.¹

Prior Proceedings

On February 7, 1992, Fulani filed the original complaint in this action, which challenges the Federal Defendants' failure to enforce the non-electioneering prohibitions of § 501(c)(3), and which named Nicholas Brady, Secretary of the Treasury, and Shirley D. Peterson, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, as defendants. Fulani filed the Amended Complaint, naming the League as a party defendant, on February 13, 1992. Fulani sought a preliminary injunction compelling the Federal Defendants to revoke the League's tax-exempt status prior to the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary debate cosponsored by the League and the Cable News Network ("CNN") and scheduled for February 16, 1992.

Fulani's motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction was heard in Part I before the Honorable John E. Sprizzo. Judge Sprizzo, reading the opinion into the record from the bench, denied Fulani's motion. Fulani filed a notice of appeal of Judge Sprizzo's decision with the Second Circuit.² This Court granted the Federal Defendants' motion for a stay of discovery pending the decision of the Second Circuit. See Fulani v. Brady, No. 92 Civ. 0998 (RWS), 1992 WL 116779, 1992 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 7320 (S.D.N.Y. May 19, 1992). In July 1992, the Second Circuit dismissed the appeal as moot because the debate, which Fulani had sought to enjoin, had been held on February 16, 1992. See Fulani v. Brady, 972 F.2d 1329 (2d Cir.1992).

The Federal Defendants now move for dismissal of Fulani's Amended Complaint on the ground that either this Court does not have jurisdiction over the subject matter of this action because Fulani does not have standing to sue the League and the Federal Defendants, or that, even if Fulani does have standing, she has failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.

This motion was filed by the Federal Defendants on July 7, 1992. The Court heard oral arguments and considered the motion fully submitted on September 23, 1992.

Facts³

Since its founding in 1957, the League has frequently sponsored Democratic and Republican presidential primary debates, and presidential and vice-presidential general election debates. In 1984, the League sponsored four Democratic presidential primary debates, one vice-presidential general election debate, and two presidential general election debates. In 1988, the League sponsored one Republican presidential primary debate and two Democratic presidential primary debates. The purpose of the League's primary debates is to educate the nation's electorate about the issues and the positions of the candidates running in the primary election campaigns, and to stimulate voter interest and participation in the electoral process.

Fulani ran for the presidency of the United States in 1988 as an independent and minor party candidate. In response to her exclusion from the League-sponsored presidential primary debates, Fulani filed an action against the League and moved for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the League. See Fulani v. League of Women Voters Educ. Fund, 684 F.Supp. 1185 (S.D.N.Y.1988) ("Fulani I"). This Court denied that motion, and the Second Circuit affirmed and dismissed the action. See Fulani v. League of Women Voters Educ. Fund, 882 F.2d 621 (2d Cir.1989) ("Fulani II").

After being excluded from the 1988 presidential debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates ("CPD"), Fulani brought an action against the Federal Defendants and the CPD in the District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking the revocation of the CPD's tax-exempt status. The court dismissed the action, see Fulani v. Brady, 729 F.Supp. 158 (D.D.C. 1990), and a divided Court of Appeals affirmed. See Fulani v. Brady, 935 F.2d 1324 (D.C.Cir.1991), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 912, 116 L.Ed.2d 812 (1992) (Mikva, C.J., dissenting) ("Fulani III").

In February 1991, Fulani declared her candidacy for the presidency in the 1992 race. She began as an independent and minor party candidate, while calling upon Rev. Jesse Jackson to compete for the Democratic party nomination and pledging that she would support him in 1992, as she and her supporters had done in 1984 and 1988. Fulani organized a campaign structure that qualified her for federal matching funds in the 1992 race ahead of all the other candidates of both major parties, and in December 1991, the Federal Elections Commission ("FEC") announced that Fulani had raised more matchable contributions than President George Bush and Tom Harkin.

When Rev. Jackson announced that he would not seek the Democratic party nomination in 1992, Fulani entered the Democratic party race. On December 17, 1991, she filed as a candidate in the New Hampshire Democratic party primary, and her ballot access counsel gave routine notice to the FEC that she was entering a number of Democratic party nominating contests. Fulani immediately set up a fully staffed campaign and press office in Manchester, New Hampshire, and re-oriented her full-time itinerary of campaign appearances to focus on that state.

The New Hampshire Democratic party (the "State Party") planned a series of debates before live audiences among "major" candidates for the party's nomination. The most significant debates were scheduled for three Sundays — December 19, 1991, in Nashua, January 19, 1992, in Manchester, and February 10, 1992, in Claremont. Fulani was told that she did not qualify for inclusion in the debates because she had never held statewide office.

Fulani, however, ended up participating in the Nashua debate. At the beginning of that debate another insurgent Democrat, former Mayor of Irvine, California, Larry Agran, stood up in the audience and protested his exclusion. The moderator instructed police officers to physically eject Agran from the room. Spontaneously, members of the audience shouted protests and asked for Agran and then Fulani to be included, which they were.

In planning for the subsequent debates, the State Party publicly stated that Fulani and Agran would not be included in any further party-sponsored debates. To avoid a repeat of the Nashua call for the insurgent candidates from the audience, the State Party moved the Manchester debate to a closed television studio, which drew the wrath of hearty protestors who picketed the studio in sub-zero weather. Rather than attempt to hold another exclusionary debate before an audience of rank and file democrats, the State Party finally decided simply to cancel the Claremont debate altogether.

In 1992, the League agreed with the Cable News Network ("CNN") to co-sponsor one Democratic party presidential primary debate and one Republican presidential primary debate prior to the New Hampshire primary. The Democratic party debate (the "Debate") was scheduled to be held in St. Anselm on February 16, 1992, two days before the New Hampshire primary election. The events surrounding the Democratic primary debate are the focus of Fulani's complaint.

In January 1992, Fulani's campaign inquired of the League regarding her inclusion in the Debate. In a letter dated January 16, 1992, the League provided the Fulani campaign with its "New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary Debate Participation Criteria" ("Selection Criteria") and gave Fulani until January 24 to demonstrate that she qualified to be included under the Selection Criteria. Fulani submitted a detailed analysis, complete with full documentation, to show that her candidacy met all of the Selection Criteria. The League responded with a pro-forma rejection dated January 23, 1992 and denied Fulani's request on the ground that she did not meet the League's Selection Criteria because she was not a "significant" candidate for the Democratic party's nomination for president.

Fulani made a...