Appeals Court issues opinion in Level the Playing Field, et al. v. FEC*

WASHINGTON – The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today issued a Per Curiam Judgment and Opinion in Level the Playing Field, et al. v. FEC (Case No. 19-5117), affirming the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to the Commission. Plaintiffs had filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2015 to challenge the agency’s dismissal of two administrative complaints alleging that the Commission on Presidential Debates had violated the agency’s debate regulations and its decision not to engage in a rulemaking to revise those regulations to prohibit the use of a polling threshold as a criterion for accessing general election debates.

* This press release was edited on June 18, 2020, to correct the erroneous statement that the use of a polling threshold would be the sole criterion rather than one of the criteria for accessing debates.