Perot Suit Charges Bias Against Minority Parties

Continuing recent efforts to insinuate himself back into politics, billionaire Ross Perot sued the Republican and Democratic parties and the Federal Election Commission in federal court Wednesday in a push for the rights of minor party candidates.

The suit contends that large chunks of federal election laws are unconstitutional and discriminate against small political parties. In addition, it charges that the FEC--consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans--does nothing to protect minority candidates.

“This system in its application,” the suit says, “leaves no protection for persons or entities who are not affiliated with either major party from rank partisan persecution by both parties.”

Zinging President Clinton, former Sen. Bob Dole and both parties for alleged campaign abuses and attacking the federal response to Desert Storm syndrome, among other topics, Perot explained himself at a wide-ranging news conference.

Knowing that they would not be prosecuted by the FEC, Perot argued, both parties during the 1996 presidential campaign ignored federal restrictions on “soft money,” which may be used only for party-building activities such as voter registration drives.

“It has been estimated again and again that the Republicans at the top . . . spent $20 million illegally and the Democrats at the top . . . spent $45 million illegally,” Perot said. “Now what could be more wrong? These are major felonies, no ifs ands or buts.”

Both parties “were guilty, and since they own the system, they both put a gun to one another’s head,” continued Perot, who twice ran for president unsuccessfully. “One said to the other ‘If you take us down, we’ll take you down.’ ”

No defendants have yet been served in the lawsuit, which seeks in part an accounting of spending by Democrats and Republicans in the 1996 presidential election campaign. FEC spokeswoman Sharon Snyder, Democratic National Committee spokesman Steve Langdon and Clinton/Gore ’96 spokesman Peter O’Toole declined to comment on Perot’s action.

“It sounds like Ross Perot is kicking off his campaign in his own inimitable style,” said Clifford May, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. “But we can’t comment on [the suit’s] seriousness or frivolity until we are served.”

Campaign finance experts had mixed responses to the legitimacy of Perot’s suit but were uniformly skeptical about his motives.

Herbert E. Alexander, a USC expert on campaign finance, dismissed Perot’s move as “a nuisance suit” unlikely to go anywhere in the courts. “He likes to be a thorn in the side, and he has the money to do it,” Alexander said. “But I don’t think this is going to have any serious impact.”

After calling the U.S. Senate investigation into campaign finance abuse inadequate, Perot threatened to use his lawsuit to cover some of the same ground. He said the suit will generate testimony that can be used against major party candidates in the future.

“This suit will allow us to depose all the people who committed these criminal acts during the campaign. They can’t plead the 5th Amendment because this is a civil case,” Perot said. “How would you like to be running for office in 1998 or the year 2000 with depositions out there about all the weird, sick things you did?”

Why file a Beltway lawsuit in the Bay Area? If you ask Perot’s attorney, Donald Godwin, it’s because much of the “soft money” from both campaigns was spent on advertising in California.

If you ask Perot, the answer is somewhat different. “Some people say, ‘Well, why didn’t you file this lawsuit in Washington?’ Because taking money and using it illegally just seems normal in Washington at this point.” And California is as far from Washington as you can get, he said.

The suit was filed by Perot ’96 Inc. and a variety of organizations linked to Perot and his Reform Party. It challenges a federal law that provides less federal campaign funding to minor parties than to major parties, and another law that requires aggrieved individuals to file a complaint with the FEC before going to court.

Perot plans to pay for the litigation with about $2.2 million in federal funds left over from his 1996 presidential run.

Alexander says similar lawsuits have been filed unsuccessfully by other minor party candidates. But Benjamin Ginsberg, a veteran GOP campaign finance lawyer in Washington, contends that Perot’s complaint regarding the rights of those candidates is a “legitimate” area to explore.

However, Ginsberg was harshly critical of what he called Perot’s “unlimited fishing expedition aimed at everyone he thinks he should be able to expose. . . . Vigilantism has been frowned upon in civil as well as criminal law.”

Kenneth Gross, the former chief of enforcement for the FEC who has represented numerous clients--including Perot--in past campaign-finance matters, said, “The structure of the commission has been upheld in prior decisions.”

“To say the least,” he went on, Perot’s suit will be “a tough row to hoe.”

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La Ganga reported from San Francisco and Barabak from Washington.